IS militants purge Syrian town of Assad loyalists

Damaged Syrian military helicopters are shown Thursday at Palmyra air base, which was captured by the Islamic State militants after a battle with the Syrian government forces in Palmyra, Syria.
Damaged Syrian military helicopters are shown Thursday at Palmyra air base, which was captured by the Islamic State militants after a battle with the Syrian government forces in Palmyra, Syria.

BEIRUT (AP) - Islamic State group militants hunted down Syrian government troops and loyalists in the newly captured town of Palmyra, shooting or beheading them in public as a warning, and imposing their strict interpretation of Islam, activists said Friday.

The purge, which relied mostly on informants, was aimed at solidifying the extremists' grip on the strategic town overrun Wednesday by IS fighters.

It also was part of a campaign to win the support of President Bashar Assad's opponents, who have suffered from a government crackdown in the town and surrounding province in the last four years of Syria's civil war.

The strategy included promises to fix the electricity and water grids - after Palmyra is cleared of regime loyalists, according to an activist in the historic town. The man is known in the activist community by the nom de guerre of Omar Hamza because he fears for his security.

The capture of Palmyra has raised alarm the militants might try to destroy one of the Mideast's most spectacular archaeological sites - a well-preserved, 2,000-year-old Roman-era city on the town's edge - as they have destroyed others in Syria and Iraq. For the moment, however, their priority appeared to be in imposing their rule, with activists saying there were no signs the group moved in on the ancient ruins.

In neighboring Iraq, IS militants made more territorial gains, seizing the small town of Husseiba, less than a week after capturing the provincial capital of Ramadi, said tribal leader Sheikh Rafie al-Fahdawi.

They captured the Iraqi side of a key border crossing with Syria on Thursday after Iraqi forces pulled out. The fall of the al-Walid crossing in Anbar province will help the militants shuttle weaponry and reinforcements more easily across the border of the two countries where they have declared a self-styled caliphate.

The IS militants imposed a curfew in Palmyra from 5 p.m. until sunrise and banned people from leaving town until this morning to ensure none of the government figures they seek manage to escape, activists and officials said. Jihadis went through the streets telling residents via loudspeakers not to give refuge to Assad loyalists.

IS commanders also fanned out to Palmyra's mosques to deliver sermons during Friday's weekly communal prayers. Mosques were packed after fighters on Thursday had urged people to attend and told women to cover their faces.

The sermons were mostly about the importance of performing the five-times-a-day prayers in the mosques and women having to cover their faces and dress in loose clothes, Hamza said via Skype. At the mosque where he prayed, the person delivering the sermon was a non-Syrian Arab, as were most of the leaders in the group in town, he said, while the fighters were Syrians.

In his sermon, the speaker warned that women not wearing the proper Islamic attire will be flogged.

Fighters were carrying out a bloody, door-to-door search to find and kill fugitive soldiers and known Assad loyalists, several activists said.

Prompted by the IS warnings not to provide shelter, some residents came forward with information about troops who had tried to melt into the population when the militants stormed into the town, said another activist who goes by the nom de guerre of Bebars al-Talawy for his security.

Amateur video posted on a pro-IS Facebook page showed residents and militants gathering around two bloodied men in military uniforms on a Palmyra street.

"Let all the residents see them," one of the men shown in the video told an IS fighter. Photos circulating on pro-IS Twitter feeds showed purported government troops shot to death or decapitated.

The video and photos appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting.

Hamza and al-Talawy said as many as 280 loyalists and government soldiers were summarily killed, some shot in the head or beheaded in a public square.

Militants abducted soldiers and pro-government gunmen from homes, shops and other places where they had sought to hide, said al-Talawy, who is based in the nearby city of Homs.

"The search is going from house to house, shop to shop, and people on the streets have to show identity cards," said Osama al-Khatib, an activist from Palmyra who is now in Turkey. Al-Khatib last contacted his friends and relatives Friday morning in Palmyra before the government cut off phones and Internet service in the town. The communication was later partially restored.

Al-Khatib said some 150 bodies lay in the streets, including 25 residents who were members of the pro-government militia known as the Popular Committees.

The door-to-door hunt was similar to a purge the militants carried out in Ramadi after it fell Sunday.

On Thursday, gunmen believed to be from IS kidnapped a Christian priest, the Rev. Jacques Mourad, from the village of Qaryatayn, southwest of Palmyra. The 48-year-old Mourad and his bodyguard were taken to an unknown location, according to a priest in in Damascus, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. He said the priest's computer and car also were seized.

U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said he received with "deep sadness" the news of Mourad's abduction.

Hamza said the public killings in Palmyra appeared aimed at winning support of residents who opposed Assad's rule, and that the strategy was succeeding with some.

"People don't seem to be resentful of the new guidelines. They are saying it is much better than the regime, which used to terrorize the whole town, especially through the arrest campaigns," Hamza said.