Damascus: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) militants have executed “dozens” of fleeing Syrian soldiers, a monitor said on Thursday, the latest in a string of brutal abuses alarming western powers who fear a global spread of the terror.
News of the killings comes as US President Barack Obama is reportedly weighing air strikes on Isil positions in Syria and coming closer to greenlighting a mission to aid Shiite Turkmen trapped in an Iraqi town by the militants.
French President Francois Hollande on Thursday added his voice to the disquiet that has been growing since the militants marauded through Iraq and beheaded US journalist James Foley.
The latest killings took place during the night in the northern province of Raqqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that the victims were soldiers fleeing towards government-held territory to the West after the militants overran their air base at Tabqa.
The militants boasted on Twitter that they had killed 200 defeated troops and posted video of what they said was the garrison in headlong flight.
“Dozens of Syrian soldiers captured while fleeing... after the Isil overran Tabqa airbase were executed by the jihadists during the night,” said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The militants seized the airport on Sunday after weeks of bitter fighting with loyalist forces, cementing their control over Raqqa province, capital of their self-declared Islamic “caliphate”.
Abdul Rahman said the defeated garrison comprised 1,400 soldiers, 200 of whom were killed and 700 of whom managed to escape.
The other 500 remain on the run. Dozens were captured on Wednesday night as they attempted to cross the desert to government-held territory in the Orontes Valley to the West.
Barefoot men in underwear
Isil posted video footage showing young men in underwear being marched barefoot along a desert road. Militants shouted “Islamic State” and “There’s no going back”.
A UN-mandated probe charged Wednesday that public executions, amputations, lashings and mock crucifixions have become a regular fixture in militant-controlled areas of Syria.
The UN has also highlighted the plight of the thousands of mainly Shiite Turkmen residents of the northern Iraq town of Amerli, who face danger both because of their faith, which militants consider heresy, and their resistance against the militants, of the sort that has drawn deadly retribution elsewhere.
The town has been besieged for more than two months and residents are desperate for food and water and fear a massacre if the militants push through their defences.
Washington is weighing both aid drops and air strikes to help the town, US officials said on Wednesday.
“It could be a humanitarian operation. It could be a military operation. It could be both,” a US defence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Iraq is also preparing its own effort, massing forces north and south of the town in Salah Al Deen province and carrying out air strikes against the militants besieging it.
There is “no possibility of evacuating them so far”, Eliana Nabaa, spokeswoman for the UN mission in Iraq, said of Amerli residents.
UN Iraq envoy Nickolay Mladenov has called for an urgent effort to help Amerli, saying residents face a “possible massacre” if the town is overrun.
The US, which has been carrying out an air campaign against Isil militants in Iraq since August 8, has begun surveillance flights over Syria too, a possible precursor to air strikes.
The US focus on Syria comes after President Bashar Al Assad’s regime said on Monday it was willing to work with the international community, including Washington, to tackle extremist fighters.
