The Iraqi army has launched an airstrike that killed 60 Islamic militants in the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday.

Several eyewitnesses said the dead were kept in an improvised prison made by the extremists group.

In a report by an Iraqi state agency, the strike happened at dawn and the attack was aimed at a prison that the Islamic extremists were using as a detention complex and religious facility.

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Nearly 300 Mosul residents who were in the insurgents' custody were set free after the strike,according to the report.

A Mosul resident  told the Associated Press that after the airstrike, families of the prisoners immediately went to the prison to help their relatives.

"The prison was partly damaged in the airstrike," said the resident, who asked to withhold his identity for fear of retribution.

Mosul is the second largest city in Iraq. It was taken over by the Sunni Islamic insurgents in June in an attack that also seized the northern and western part of Iraq.

The militant attack is one of the worst crises Iraq has experienced since 2011 when U.S. troops were extracted from the country, according to the Star.

The Sunni group has enforced their own style of Muslim rule in Iraq and Syria through their own interpretation of the Islamic law.

Since the takeover, the Iraqi government has joined forces with Sunni militiamen to drive the extremists group away from the Mosul, but their efforts have been futile.

Meanwhile, in Iraq's capital Baghdad, car bombs exploded in the Shi'ite Muslim district markets, killing more than 10 people on Wednesday, according to the Baghdad police. 

TagsIraq, Mosul, Israeli airstrikes