Islamic State group kills captured Syrian soldiers
Source: AP-EXCITE
By RYAN LUCAS and ZEINA KARAM
BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group killed more than 150 troops captured in recent fighting for a string of military bases in northeastern Syria, shooting some and slashing others with knives in the past 24 hours in the latest mass killing attributed to the extremists, activists said Thursday.
In southern Syria meanwhile, gunmen detained 43 U.N. peacekeepers during fighting on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, the United Nations said. It added that another 81 peacekeepers were trapped in the area by the heavy clashes between rebels and Syrian troops.
The killing of government troops, combined with photos of dusty, terrified conscripts under militant guard in the desert, underscored how the extremist group uses violence — and images of violence — to instill fear in its opponents as it seeks to expand the proto-state it has carved out in Syria and neighboring Iraq.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that many of the soldiers killed were rounded up Wednesday in the arid countryside near the Tabqa airfield, three days after Islamic State fighters seized the base. The government troops were among a large group of soldiers from the base who were stuck behind the front lines after the airfield fell to the jihadi fighters.
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A U.N. peacekeeper from the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, also known as UNDOF, observes Syrian's Quneitra province at an observation point on Mt. Bental in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, overlooking the border with Syria, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2014. From the Israeli side of the de facto border, large clouds of smoke could be seen, as gunfire and explosions sounded in the distance. Israeli soldiers observed the fighting. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
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