The Islamic State group has executed at least 217 people, including civilians, in and around the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra in the past nine days, a monitor said on Sunday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had documented the executions of 67 civilians, including children, and 150 members of Syrian government forces by Islamic State extremists in different parts of Homs Province since May 16.
“The Observatory has confirmed that the Islamic State has executed 67 civilians, including 14 children and 12 women in Sukhnah, al-Amiriyah, the outskirts of the Officers’ Housing and Palmyra,” the Britain-based group said, referring to several areas in the east of Homs Province.
“[Islamic State] also executed more than 150 members of the [Syrian] army, National Defense Forces and Popular Committees [pro-regime militias] and others accused of being ‘informers loyal to the regime,’” the Observatory added.
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said that entire families had been executed, including children along with their parents.
“Most of the deaths were in Palmyra, some of the executions were shootings, others were killed with knives and beheaded,” he said.
The toll from the observatory came hours after Syrian state media said the group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant had carried out a “massacre” in Palmyra, reportedly slaughtering about 00 civilians, mostly women and children.
The observatory said the executions came in the days after the group began a sweep into Homs from their stronghold in neighboring Deir Ezzor Province.
The group captured the strategic town of Sukhnah on May 13 and took Palmyra about 24 hours later, prompting international concern about the fate of the city’s famed ancient ruins.
Fighters entered the museum in the historic city and had placed guards at its doors, Syria’s antiquities director said on Saturday, although most of the museum’s treasures were removed and brought to Damascus before the extremists cemented their control.
The observatory said that another 600 people had been taken prisoner by the group in its sweep through the area, among them government forces and pro-government militants, but also civilians accused of ties to Damascus.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not