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Kashmiri demonstrators hold up a flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
The city of Deir Ezzor in northern Syria has seen more than its share of conflict and suffering since the Syrian insurgency began.
But the last few days have seen unprecedented horror, according to human rights activists, with suicide bombings, mass abductions and arbitrary killings.
Most of the city has been controlled by ISIS for well over a year, but some neighborhoods and the military airport to the south have remained in the hands of the regime. In recent weeks, ISIS has stepped up offensives against several of these areas. And in the last few days it has overrun several neighborhoods, capturing and killing dozens of Syrian soldiers but also seizing many civilians, according to reports from activists.
Civilians abducted
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Sunday that at least 400 civilians — including families of pro-regime fighters — had been abducted by ISIS during the latest fighting and taken to surrounding countryside. The Observatory said it was feared they had been executed. Syria’s official news agency SANA provided similar figures, claiming that ISIS had “committed a massacre in al-Bagaliyeh,” a village to the north of the city, killing “around 300 civilians, most of them women, children, and elderly people.”
There is no way to verify independently the reports by the Observatory and SANA; other opposition outlets have put the number of casualties lower.
The Observatory also reported Saturday that ISIS had killed or executed some 50 soldiers and 85 civilians during its offensive against al-Bagaliyeh. ISIS deployed several suicide bombers in the attacks, in which regime positions at a hotel on the banks of the Euphrates — the Furat Cham Palace — were overrun.
The ISIS-affiliated news agency Aamaq said Sunday that 167 regime fighters had been killed and many more wounded. A video released by ISIS Sunday purported to show heavy artillery and tanks being used as well as abandoned regime positions.
The Observatory said that regime forces were now trying to reinforce their defenses with additional troops. And the regime-appointed governor of Deir ez-Zor province, Mohammad Qaddur Ajnyyja, is reported to have told the Russian news outlet Sputnik that the Syrian army had retaken al-Bagaliyeh. There is no way to confirm his claim.
Fighting in and around Deir Ezzour has become more intense since last October, when ISIS seized a number of checkpoints close to the military airport. Inside the city, ISIS has been chipping away at the Syrian regime’s remaining positions, tunneling under them and attacking checkpoints with suicide bombs.
CNN