Extremists reportedly forced captives to march in their underwear
across desert before brutally executing them.
BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group killed more than 150 troops captured in recent fighting for a string of military bases in northeastern Syria, shooting some and slashing others with knives in the past 24 hours, after reportedly forcing them to march naked in the desert for hours, in the latest mass killing attributed to the extremists, activists said Thursday.
In southern Syria meanwhile, gunmen detained 43 UN peacekeepers during fighting on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, the United Nations said. It added that another 81 peacekeepers were trapped in the area by the heavy clashes between rebels and Syrian troops.
The killing of government troops, combined with photos of dusty, terrified conscripts under militant guard in the desert, underscored how the extremist group uses violence — and images of violence — to instill fear in its opponents as it seeks to expand the proto-state it has carved out in Syria and neighboring Iraq.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that many of the soldiers killed were rounded up Wednesday in the arid countryside near the Tabqa airfield, three days after Islamic State fighters seized the base. The government troops were among a large group of soldiers from the base who were stuck behind the front lines after the airfield fell to the jihadi fighters.
The Observatory said around 120 captive government troops from Tabqa were killed near the base. Islamic State fighters killed at least another 40 soldiers, most of whom were taken prisoner in recent fighting for other bases in the area, in the Hamrat region near Raqqa city, the group’s stronghold.
A statement posted online and circulated on Twitter by supporters of the Islamic State group claimed the extremists killed “about 200″ government prisoners captured near Tabqa. It also showed photographs of what it said were the prisoners: young men stripped down to their underwear marching in the desert. The photos could not immediately be verified, but correspond to other AP reporting.
A video that emerged online purportedly showed Islamic State fighters escorting nearly 200 men, stripped down to their underwear and barefoot, through the desert. Another video posted online later showed more than 150 men, also in their underwear, lying motionless — apparently dead — in a row in the sand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJXsrV47PMM
While the videos could not be independently confirmed by the AP, they appeared to illustrate the claims made online by Islamic State group supporters and Syrian activists about the mass killing.
There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government.
In its rise to prominence over the past year, the extremist group has frequently published graphic photos and videos of everything from beheadings to mass killings.
In Iraq, for example, the group killed nearly 200 men — most of them Iraqi soldiers — in late June near the northern city of Tikrit, human rights groups and Iraqi officials say. It published photos online showing dozens of men dressed in civilian clothes lined up or lying face down as militants aimed rifles at their backs. A final set of photos showed their bloodied bodies.
Such killings have not been limited to Iraq. Earlier this month, Islamic State fighters shot and beheaded hundreds of tribesmen in eastern Syria who had risen up against the group.
A UN commission accused the Islamic State group Wednesday of committing crimes against humanity in Syria — echoing UN accusations against the group in Iraq.
The Islamic State group’s surge is one aspect of Syria’s multi-layered civil war, a bloody conflict that has killed more than 190,000 people and destabilized the region.
The 43 UN peacekeepers were detained by an armed group early Thursday in the Golan, where fighting has raged this week between Syrian rebels and government forces.
The office of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon did not identify the armed group that is holding the peacekeepers. Several rebel groups operate in the Golan, while the Islamic State group has no known presence there.
The UN said another 81 peacekeepers are “currently being restricted to their positions” in the vicinity of Ruwaihaniyeh and Burayqa.
The Syrian government denounced the “kidnapping” of the UN peacekeepers. In a statement issued by the Syrian Foreign Ministry, the government said it holds “the terrorist groups and those who support them fully responsible for the safety of the UN peacekeepers, and calls for their immediate release.”
The statement from Ban’s office said the UN “is making every effort to secure the release of the detained peacekeepers,” who are part of UNDOF, the mission that has been monitoring a 1974 disengagement accord between Syria and Israel after their 1973 war.
As of July, UNDOF had 1,223 troops from six countries: Fiji, India, Ireland, Nepal, Netherlands and the Philippines.
Syrian rebels briefly abducted UN peacekeepers twice in 2013 before eventually releasing them unharmed.
Heavy fighting has engulfed the Syrian side of the Golan since Wednesday, when rebels captured a crossing on the disputed frontier with Israel. A rebel spokesman said the opposition is focused on fighting President Bashar Assad, and poses no threat to Israel.
On Thursday, government warplanes targeted several rebel positions in the area, including in the village of Jaba, the Observatory said. The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, also reported the air raids.
The Observatory said heavy clashes were raging between the rebels and the Syrian military in Jaba and the surrounding countryside.
White plumes of smoke set off by exploding mortar rounds could be seen on Thursday from the Israeli side of the Golan. The sound of small arms fire could be heard echoing in the background.
Egypt feminist defecates on IS flag in the nude
Graphic content:
Aliaa Magda Elmahdy posts photo to Facebook; Arab media avoid publishing since words ‘there is no God but Allah’ are printed on banner.
Aliaa Magda Elmahdy’s anti-ISIS protest (photo credit: Aliaa Magda Elmahdy/Facebook)
Aliaa Magda Elmahdy did not specify why she posted the photo, though past controversies, such as a 2011 incident in which she posed in only stockings and red shoes for her blog — to protest against Egypt’s conservative culture — suggest that she was opposing the Islamic State terror group’s brutally restrictive and misogynistic ideology.
In the image, the 23-year-old feminist is seen facing the camera, while the other woman, dressed in a black hijab, has her back towards the viewer. Two presumably plastic machine guns are in the background, and the veiled woman is holding up her middle finger. The letters IS are inscribed on Elmahdy’s stomach and on the second woman’s bottom.
Arab media across the Middle East avoided publishing the photo, since the words “there is no God but Allah” are printed on the desecrated flag, Army Radio reported.
Elmahdy said in the past that her photos “scream against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy.” However, she has been criticized for her endeavors not only by hard-line Muslims in her home country, but by liberal, secular leaning individuals as well.
“This hurts the entire secular current in front of those calling themselves the people of virtue,” Sayyed el-Qimni, a prominent secularist, said of the 2011 image, in an apparent reference to Salafi extremists, AP reported at the time.
Elmahdy did not respond to the criticisms, but continued to be active in the struggle to achieve equal rights for women in Egypt.
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES.
Syria conflict: IS ‘kills dozens of Assad soldiers’
SIS terrorists film mass execution of 250 Syrian soldiers after forcing them to march through desert in their underwear.
Horrific pictures shows Islamic state terrorists lining up 250 nearly naked Syrian soldiers and marching them through the desert before their brutal executions.
Merciless Islamic State of Iraq and Syria terrorists savagely executed 250 captured Syrian soldiers, new video shows.
Before they were killed, the jihadists forced the men to strip down to nothing but their underwear and paraded them through Syria’s desert — apparently a march to their graves.
The video, posted to an ISIS YouTube account Thursday, and its executions were confirmed by a fighter for the group.
In the video, the men walk single file with their hands behind their heads. An ISIS fighter repeatedly shouts out « Islamic State. » The men reply, « It shall remain. »
The footage fades to black before showing a pile of bodies lying face-down in the sand.
An ISIS terrorist told Reuters that 250 men were executed after the march. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors violence in the war, put the death toll at more than 120.
ISIS stormed Tabqa airbase on Sunday. The vicious terrorist group claimed to have captured soldiers during the raid, but it’s unclear if the men in the video are from the same base.
The mass execution left 250 dead.
The radical terrorist group controls about third of Syria and parts of Iraq and has pitted itself against the Syrian Army. The group wants to set up a transborder state and leader in the Iraqi and Syrian territory it has captured.
Earlier this summer, President Obama approved airstrikes on the militants in Iraq after the ISIS overran several cities.
The mass execution comes a week after the terrorist organization leaked video of a fighter beheading kidnapped American journalist James Foley. The terrorists claimed he was killed because of the U.S.’s airstrike campaign in Iraq.
The group has at least three other American captives including TIME magazine journalist Steven Sotloff and an unnamed 26-year-old female humanitarian aid worker. The terrorists have threated to execute all of them.
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