Extremist armed factions across Syria are carrying out executions of civilians and soldiers amid the chaos following the fall of deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's government.
Al-Mayadeen reports on Tuesday that a video circulating on social media shows armed militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Al-Qaeda offshoot that took control of Damascus on Saturday, carrying out field executions of unarmed men in the village of al-Rabia in the countryside of Latakia.
The militants referred to the men as ‘Shabiha’, a derogatory term long used to describe pro-government Syrian soldiers and civilians.
The HTS military operations administration reported ongoing clashes in Al-Rabia, including the encirclement of a group of officers inside a fortified farm in the village, Al-Mayadeen stated.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Tuesday that, according to its sources, the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) carried out executions and assaulted properties of nearly 30,000 Kurdish families in Manbij City.
In the Nawaha and Al-Asadiya neighborhoods, SNA militants burned houses of civilians, stole their property, and executed at least three people, including a woman, SOHR added.
On Monday, ISIS militants killed 54 Syrian army soldiers who were fleeing an attack by the terror group in the central province of Homs.
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ISIS militants captured “personnel fleeing military service in the desert ... during the collapse of the regime” of president Bashar al-Assad and "executed 54" of them in the Sukhna area in the Homs desert, SOHR stated.
Syrian sources reported the assassination on Tuesday of Sheikh Tawfiq al-Bhouti by unknown attackers. Bhouti was the son of the world-renowned Sunni Muslim scholar Sheikh Muhammad Saeed Ramadan al-Bhouti, who was assassinated along with 40 others in a mosque in 2013 by members of the Nusra Front, now known as HTS.
The elder Bhouti was an advocate of Sufism, and an opponent of Salafi interpretations of Islam that teach hatred against non-Muslims. Bhouti was a strong supporter of Bashar al-Assad's government and spoke against the extremist armed groups attacking Syrian civilians, police, and soldiers during the war that began in 2011.