ISIL militants have destroyed over a dozen shrines belonging to Shiites in Iraq, an Iraqi official said on Friday. 

Abbas Saeedi, the secretary general in charge of state-run Shiite shrines, said the group reduced to ruins a total of 17 shrines, four of which were in Mosul, with the others located in Diyala, Kirkuk and Saladin provinces.

The militant group, which controls parts in Iraq and Syria, destroyed Shiite community-affiliated worship places and congregation halls known as Hussainia, Saeedi said. 

"ISIL's attitude towards Islam’s holy values is an ideology that is far away from Islam," the secretary general said, deeming the militant group's acts to be "contrary to the holy Qur'an."

Saeedi said the destroyed shrines had historic and cultural value as well as religious ones. He claimed they housed 600-year-old swords and spears along with valuable artifacts.

"All of them were stolen from the bombed shrines," Saeedi told The Anadolu Agency.

AA