BEIRUT: Daesh has executed one of dozens of Druze hostages abducted from Syria’s southern province of Sweida last week, a journalist in the area and a monitor said Sunday.
Daesh went on a rampage in Sweida on July 25, killing more than 250 people — mostly civilians — in the deadliest attack ever to target the mostly regime-held province and its Druze religious minority.
The militants also kidnapped more than 30 people, most of them women and children, from a village in the province, which had previously remained largely isolated from Syria’s seven-year civil war.
On Thursday, Daesh killed a 19-year-old male student who was among the hostages, the head of the Sweida24 news website Nour Radwan told AFP.
Quoting relatives, Radwan, who was speaking from Sweida, said the young man was taken from the village of Al-Shabki on July 25 along with his mother.
His family received two videos, the first showing him being decapitated and the second of him speaking before being killed as well as images of his body after his death, Radwan said.
Sweida24 posted online part of a second video, which was seen by AFP, showing a bearded young man who appeared to be sitting on the ground in a landscape of grey rocks.
He is wearing a black T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, and his hands are tied behind his back. The video could not be independently verified.
Also on Sunday, sources said the head of a Syrian research facility that Western countries say was part of a chemical weapons program was killed when his car was blown up.
Aziz Asber was the director of the Syrian Scientific Research Center in Masyaf, near the city of Hama, which Western governments say was a covert Syrian regime installation.
“(Asber) died after an explosion targeted his car in the Hama countryside,” Al-Watan said in an online report.
The attack on Asber was claimed by a Syrian militant group affiliated to Tahrir Al-Sham. It includes the group formerly known as the Nusra Front, which served as Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch.
Militants have lost much of the territory they once controlled in Syria after overrunning large swathes of it in 2014, but they retain a presence in the east of the country and in the vast Badiya desert that sweeps through its south.
The regime has been fighting in recent weeks to expel Daesh fighters from a patch in the neighboring province of Daraa.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the young man’s execution was the first since the kidnappings.
The execution came “after the failure of talks between Daesh and regime forces over the transfer of Daesh militants from the southwest of Daraa province to the Badiya” desert, said the Observatory.
It also follows the execution of 50 Daesh fighters and civilians in Daraa province earlier this week at the hands of rebels, according to the monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.
On Friday, a top Druze religious leader said Russia was in talks with the militants over the release of those abducted in Sweida.
Sweida24 said the oldest woman seized was 60.
Syria expert Khattar Abu Diab said that the events of July 25 in Sweida marked a turning point for the country’s Druze community.
“For this ancestral community, the abduction of women oversteps all red lines,” he said.
“Their reaction will depend on the outcome of negotiations but if all the hostages were killed” the Druze could directly intervene to expel Daesh from the desert, he said.
Regime forces have in recent weeks ousted Daesh from all of the towns and villages in the Yarmouk Basin in the northwest of Daraa province.
Syria’s state media have said regime troops are pursuing the last remaining militants who fled to nearby valleys.
In areas it has retaken from militants in recent years, the regime has sometimes negotiated to take back control of land in exchange for the transfer of fighters to other parts of Syria.
During the July 25 attack in Sweida, the militants abducted 36 Druze women and children from a village in Sweida’s east, the Observatory said at the time.
Four women had since escaped while two had died, leaving 14 women and 16 children in Daesh captivity, according to the Observatory.
At the time, another 17 men were unaccounted for but it was unclear if they were also kidnapped.
Local sources say the families of the abductees have been sent photos and videos of their loved ones via WhatsApp.
The Sweida killing is the first such execution of a kidnapped civilian by Daesh since the jihadists overran the town of Al-Qaryatain in central Syria for several weeks in October last year, the Observatory said.
Sweida bloodshed marks a turning point for Syria’s Druze community
Sweida bloodshed marks a turning point for Syria’s Druze community
- The execution came “after the failure of talks between Daesh and regime forces over the transfer of Daesh militants from the southwest of Daraa province to the Badiya
- Regime forces have in recent weeks ousted Daesh from all of the towns and villages in the Yarmouk Basin in the northwest of Daraa province
US military launches strikes in Syria against Daesh fighters after American deaths
- “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says
- President Trump earlier pledged “very serious retaliation” but stressed that Syria was fighting alongside US troops
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration launched military strikes Friday in Syria to “eliminate” Daesh group fighters and weapons sites in retaliation for an ambush attack that killed two US troops and an American interpreter almost a week ago.
A US official described it as “a large-scale” strike that hit 70 targets in areas across central Syria that had Daesh (also known as Islamic State or IS) infrastructure and weapons. Another US official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said more strikes should be expected.
The attack was conducted using F-15 Eagle jets, A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters, the officials said. F-16 fighter jets from Jordan and HIMARS rocket artillery also were used, one official said.
“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on social media.
President Donald Trump had pledged “very serious retaliation” after the shooting in the Syrian desert, for which he blamed Daesh. The troops were among hundreds of US troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the terrorist group.
Trump in a social media post said the strikes were targeting Daesh “strongholds.” He reiterated his support for Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who he said was “fully in support” of the US effort to target the militant group.
Trump also offered an all-caps threat, warning the group against attacking US personnel again.
“All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned — YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE USA.,” the president added.
The attack was a major test for the warming ties between the United States and Syria since the ouster of autocratic leader Bashar Assad a year ago. Trump has stressed that Syria was fighting alongside US troops and said Al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack,” which came as the US military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.
Syria’s foreign ministry in a statement on X following the launch of US strikes said that last week’s attack “underscores the urgent necessity of strengthening international cooperation to combat terrorism in all its forms” and that Syria is committed “to fighting Daesh and ensuring that it has no safe havens on Syrian territory and will continue to intensify military operations against it wherever it poses a threat.”
Daesh has not claimed responsibility for the attack on the US service members, but the group has claimed responsibility for two attacks on Syrian security forces since, one of which killed four Syrian soldiers in Idlib province. The group in its statements described Al-Sharaa’s government and army as “apostates.” While Al-Sharaa once led a group affiliated with Al-Qaeda, he has had a long-running enmity with Daesh.
Syrian state television reported that the US strikes hit targets in rural areas of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces and in the Jabal Al-Amour area near Palmyra. It said they targeted “weapons storage sites and headquarters used by Daesh as launching points for its operations in the region.”
Trump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring US service members killed in action.
The guardsmen killed in Syria last Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the US Army. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a US civilian working as an interpreter, was also killed.
The shooting nearly a week ago near the historic city of Palmyra also wounded three other US troops as well as members of Syria’s security forces, and the gunman was killed. The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned because of suspicions that he might be affiliated with Daesh, Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour Al-Din Al-Baba has said.
The man stormed a meeting between US and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards.
When asked for further information, the Pentagon referred AP to Hegseth’s social media post.
