Prominent Sunni Muslim scholar Yusef al-Qaradawi said on Saturday that the declaration of an Islamic caliphate by jihadists fighting the governments in Syria and Iraq violates sharia law.

Last Sunday, the jihadists of the Islamic State group declared a caliphate in areas they control in Iraq and Syria and ordered Muslims worldwide to pledge allegiance to their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, under the name "caliph Ibrahim".

Qatar-based Qaradawi, seen as a spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in his native Egypt, said in a statement that the declaration "is void under sharia."

"We look forward to the coming, as soon as possible, of the caliphate," Qaradawi said, of the form of pan-Muslim government last seen under the Ottoman Empire.

"But the declaration issued by the Islamic State is void under sharia and has dangerous consequences for the Sunnis in Iraq and for the revolt in Syria," he added.

The influential cleric said the declaration and nomination of Baghdadi by a jihadist group "known for its atrocities and radical views" fail to meet strict conditions dictated by sharia.

The title of caliph, he said, can "only be given by the entire Muslim nation" not by a single group.

Since last Sunday, other leading Muslim figures have denounced the announcement by the Islamic State, which was previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

A caliphate is fundamentally a universal Islamic state ruled by a single leader with both political and religious authority.

Many Sunnis associate the caliphate with a golden age of Islam, but the declaration made by the Islamic State has triggered indignation among those who see it as heresy.

Al-Azhar, the top authority of Sunni Islam, "believes that all those who are today speaking of an Islamic State are terrorists," senior representative Sheikh Abbas Shuman told AFP earlier this week.

"The Islamic caliphate can't be restored by force. Occupying a country and killing half of its population... this is not an Islamic state, this is terrorism," he said.

In Saudi Arabia, bastion of Sunni Islam and home to the religion's holiest places, Al-Riyadh daily ripped the caliphate as being "no more than one person heading a terrorist organisation."

Rebels in Syria, who have been battling the jihadists who have infuriated many by their brutality, have branded the caliphate announcement as "null and void".

Jordanian Al-Qaeda cleric Issam Barqawi, known as Abu Mohammed al-Maqdessi, also denounced it, warning it will lead to more bloodshed.

Jihadists destroy mosques and shrines in Iraq
Baghdad (AFP) July 05, 2014 - Jihadists who overran Mosul last month have demolished ancient shrines and mosques in and around the historic northern Iraqi city, residents and social media posts said Saturday.

At least four shrines to Sunni Arab or Sufi figures have been demolished, while six Shiite mosques, or husseiniyahs, have also been destroyed, across militant-held parts of northern Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital.

Pictures posted on the Internet by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group showed the Sunni and Sufi shrines were demolished by bulldozers, while the Shiite mosques and shrines were all destroyed by explosives.

The photographs were part of an online statement titled "Demolishing shrines and idols in the state of Nineveh."

Local residents confirmed that the buildings had been destroyed and that militants had occupied two cathedrals as well.

"We feel very sad for the demolition of these shrines, which we inherited from our fathers and grandfathers," said Ahmed, a 51-year-old resident of Mosul.

"They are landmarks in the city."

An employee at Mosul's Chaldean cathedral said militants had occupied both it and the Syrian Orthodox cathedral in the city after finding them empty.

They removed the crosses at the front of the buildings and replaced them with the Islamic State's black flag, the employee said.

IS-led militants overran Mosul last month and swiftly took control of much of the rest of Nineveh, as well as parts of four other provinces north and west of Baghdad, in an offensive that has displaced hundreds of thousands and alarmed the international community.

The city, home to two million residents before the offensive, was a Middle East trading hub for centuries, its name translating loosely as "the junction."

Though more recently populated mostly by Sunni Arabs, Mosul and Nineveh were also home to many Shiite Arabs as well as ethnic and religious minorities such as Kurds, Turkmen, Yazidis and other sects.

Iranian pilot killed fighting in Iraq: state media
Tehran (AFP) July 05, 2014 - An Iranian pilot has been killed while fighting against Sunni jihadists in Iraq, state media reported Saturday, in what is thought to be Tehran's first such military casualty.

Iran's official IRNA news agency did not say whether the pilot died while flying sorties or fighting on the ground.

Colonel Shoja'at Alamdari Mourjani was killed "defending" Shiite Muslim holy sites in the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, it said.

His death comes after Iranian declarations that it will provide its western neighbour with whatever needed to counter the Sunni militants who are laying siege to the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Samarra is a major flashpoint in the fighting and is home to the Shiite Al-Askari shrine which was bombed by Al-Qaeda in February 2006, sparking a bloody Sunni-Shiite sectarian war that killed tens of thousands of people.

The reports of the pilot's death came as Iranian officials insist their assistance is not in the form of troops, but rather of weapons and equipment if Iraq asks for them.

The militants' advances and their boasts of animosity toward Shiism -- a branch of Islam overwhelmingly practised in Iran -- have raised alarm in Tehran.

President Hassan Rouhani vowed last month that Iran would protect Shiite holy sites in Iraq, including in Samarra.

Government and military officials are yet to comment on the report of the pilot killed in Iraq.

But the Fars news agency appeared to confirm the IRNA report, publishing photos of a funeral service for the pilot on Friday in his home province of Fars, in southern Iran.

Fars did not give any details, but hinted that Alamdari Mourjani was a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, whose elite Quds Force is believed to be on the ground and assisting Iraqi forces, despite Tehran's denials.

Earlier in the week, the Iraqi defence ministry said it had taken delivery of five Sukhoi Su-25 warplanes and released video footage of them being unloaded from a cargo plane.

The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said the jets came from Iran.

Employing ruthless tactics and suicide bombers, the Islamic State militant group is now controlling swathes of Iraqi territory.

It is also fighting another ally of Iran, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Iran has provided both financial and military support to Damascus, although it has repeatedly denied rebel claims that it has sent combat troops to Syria.