‘War crime’: Druze children are taken hostage by ISIS
Sixteen of 27 hostages taken by ISIS in southern Syria last month are children, Human Rights Watch said yesterday, calling the abduction a “war crime”.
The group of mostly women and children were abducted by ISIS during a July 25 assault on the Druze community in Sweida, in which the terrorists killed more than 250 people.
The abductees are being held by ISIS to use in negotiations with the Syrian government and its ally Russia, the campaign group said.
“Hostage-taking is a war crime,” its Middle East deputy director Lama Fakih said. “Civilian lives should not be used as bargaining chips.”
ISIS has lost most of the territory it captured when it overran eastern Syria and northern Iraq in mid-2014. An international coalition and allied ground forces have regained control of all of the population centres that the militant group once held.
But ISIS has retained a presence in southern Syria, near the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Of more than 30 people taken hostage in the July offensive, at least two have since died. A male student, 19, was beheaded, with a video of his murder circulated but on the militants’ usual channels.
Later, a 65-year-old woman died. ISIS claimed she had been unwell.
Two women escaped after being abducted from their home, a family member told HRW.
Villagers provided the names of at least 27 people who remain in ISIS captivity, with children as young as seven among them, activists in Sweida province say.
The province is the heartland of Syria’s Druze minority, followers of an offshoot of Shiite Islam who are despised as heretics by the Sunni extremists in ISIS.
ISIS is seeking the release of militants captured by the government in the neighbouring province of Deraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said this month.
Meanwhile, Turkey warned on Friday against a possible Syrian government offensive on the last remaining rebel stronghold, while Russia indicated that it was losing its patience with the insurgents.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who was in Moscow for talks with Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, said that the two countries should work to separate opposition groups from terrorists in the north-western province of Idlib.
Mr Cavusoglu said a government offensive there would cause a “humanitarian catastrophe”.
“Our goal is to alleviate the concerns of our Russian counterparts and get rid of the terrorists in that area,” he said in Moscow. “We can work together but we could be putting civilian lives at risk while eradicating those radical groups.”
Russia, which has been a key backer of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, launched its operation in Syria in 2015, helping to turn the tide of the war in the government’s favour.
Turkey, which supports some of the rebel groups along its border with Syria, has mediated ceasefires in several areas of Syria, including Idlib. Russia and Iran, which also backs Mr Al Assad, have mediated ceasefires of their own.
In most such cases, opposition groups on the verge of surrender gave up their fight and were shifted to remaining areas outside government control, mostly Idlib.
Taking Idlib by force would be a difficult challenge for Mr Al Assad’s forces. After talk of a government offensive last week, the leader of Syria’s Al Qaeda affiliate in the province pledged to fight on.
Abu Mohammed Al Golani said on Wednesday that state-sponsored surrenders of rebel groups would not happen in Idlib as they did elsewhere, because they would be considered treason by his fighters.
Mr Lavrov on Friday indicated that Moscow was losing patience with the militants in Idlib, whom the Kremlin has accused of targeting government positions and Russia’s Syrian military base.
The Russian Foreign Minister said that when Turkey, Iran and Russia originally negotiated the ceasefire zones, Moscow did not expect militants to be “using it as a human shield” from which they could attack the government.
He said the situation in Idlib was complex and called for the separation of militants from legitimate opposition groups.
Mr Cavusoglu stayed on in Moscow to join a meeting later on Friday with top Russian and Turkish defence and intelligence officials to discuss the situation in Idlib.
After attacking Sweida, where they killed 250 people, ISIS terrorists are ready to trade the lives of women and children