Islamic State kills Druze hostage

BEIRUT: The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group has executed one of the dozens of Druze hostages abducted from Syria’s southern province of Sweida last month, a Syrian news website and a monitor said yesterday.

The IS killed the 19-year-old male student on Thursday after kidnapping more than 30 people, mostly women and children, from a village in Sweida during a deadly rampage last week, the head of the Sweida24 news website Nour Radwan said.

Quoting relatives, Mr Radwan said the young man was taken from the village of Al-Shabki on July 25 along with his mother.

His family received two videos, the first showing him being decapitated and the second of him speaking before being killed as well as images of his body after his death, Mr Radwan said.

Sweida24 posted part of a second video showing a young man who appeared to be sitting on the ground in a rocky landscape.

His is wearing a black T-shirt and his hands are tied behind his back.

The video could not be independently verified.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said it was the first execution since the kidnappings.

On July 25, the IS carried out a series of attacks in Sweida’s provincial capital and several villages that killed more than 250 people, mostly civilians.

It was the deadliest attack on the government-held province and the secretive Druze religious minority that populates it.

During the attack, the jihadists abducted 36 Druze women and children from a village in Sweida’s east.

Four women had since escaped while two had died, leaving still 14 women and 16 children in captivity.