Saturday, July 19, 2014
ISIS seize gas field in Syria, massacres 270 security guards and employees
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Homs, Syria: Jihadists have killed 270 Syrian regime
fighters, civilian security guards and employees since seizing a gas
field in Homs province, a monitoring group has said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights yesterday described
Thursday's takeover of the Shaar field as "the biggest" anti-regime
operation by the Islamic State (IS) since it emerged in the Syrian
conflict last year.
The watchdog, updating an earlier toll of 115, said it had
documented "the death of 270 people killed in the fighting or executed"
since Thursday.
"A large majority of the men killed were executed at gunpoint after
being taken prisoner following the takeover of the camp," said
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
"Eleven of the dead were civilian employees, while the rest were security guards and National Defence Forces members," he added.
Abdel Rahman said a counter-attack by regime forces yesterday left 40 IS militants dead.
The fate of nearly 100 people who worked at the site remained unknown, according to earlier figures released by the Observatory.
The Syrian government did not officially confirm the deaths, but
supporters of President Bashar al-Assad's regime posted photographs of
the dead, and branded their killings as a "massacre".
One pro-regime Twitter user said: "Thirty martyrs were brought to Homs hospital from the Shaar gas field... Homs is still bleeding."
He also branded the killings as a "massacre", and posted pictures of the dead.
Gruesome footage apparently recorded by the jihadists at the gas
field and distributed via YouTube showed dozens of bodies, some of them
mutilated, strewn across a desert landscape.
One video shows a jihadist posing with the bodies as he speaks in
German interspersed with religious terms in Arabic, seemingly
celebrating the killings.
Abdel Rahman, meanwhile, condemned the deaths.
"The Observatory condemns summary execution as a war crime,
regardless of which side it is committed by in the Syrian conflict," he
said.
"Summary execution is a war crime -- whether of civilians or combatants.
Image: A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab
News Agency (SANA) shows people inspecting the scene of a reported car
bomb explosion in a pro-government area in the Syrian city of Homs. The
blast wounded 14 people in a district mainly inhabited members of the
same Alawite community as President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights said.
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