Daesh killed 2,154 off battlefield since June
Hundreds of people believed captured by the terrorist group remain missing, human rights group says The Britainbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the conflict using sources on the ground, said its figure included combatants, civilians
Daesh terrorists have killed at least 2,154 people off the battlefield in Syria since the end of June when the group declared a caliphate in territory it controls, a Syrian human rights monitor said yesterday.
The killings of mostly Syrians included deaths by beheading, stoning or gunshots in non-combat situations, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, urging the United Nations Security Council to act.
“We continue in our calls to the UN Security Council for urgent action to stop the ongoing murder against the sons of the Syrian people despite the deafness of members to the screams of pain of the Syrian people,” it said in a statement.
Daesh, which also holds tracts of land in neighbouring Iraq, is an offshoot of Al Qaida and has set up its own courts in towns and villages to administer what it describes as Islamic law before carrying out the killings.
The Observatory, which tracks the conflict using sources on the ground, said its figure included combatants, civilians and also 126 Daesh fighters who had tried to flee the group or were accused of being spies.
It did not include several beheaded foreign journalists and a Jordanian pilot who was burnt to death by the group, so the probable figure is even higher, the Observatory’s Rami Abdul Rahman said. Hundreds of people believed captured by the group remain missing, he added.
One of the worst massacres was against the Sheitaat tribe which had been battling Daesh in eastern Syria. Daesh has killed at least 930 Sheitaat tribespeople, the Observatory said. The Syrian regime is also believed to be responsible for a scores of civillian deaths in Syria. On Sunday alone, 73 civilians were killed in Idlib in regime air strikes that followed Saturdsay’s rebel capture of Jisr Al Shughur.
More than 220,000 people have been killed in the conflict in Syria since it began with peaceful protests in March 2011.