Syria monitor says Islamic State executes 54 fleeing soldiers

BEIRUT - A Syria war monitor said on Dec 10 that Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants in central Homs province killed 54 soldiers who were fleeing as Islamist-led rebels pressed a major offensive on government-controlled areas.

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 Homs province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

ISIS overran large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a so-called caliphate and launching a reign of terror.

It was

defeated territorially in Syria

in 2019, but its remnants still carry out deadly attacks, particularly in the vast Badia desert which runs from the outskirts of Damascus to the Iraqi border, mainly targeting government loyalists and Kurdish-led fighters.

Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and allied factions launched a lightning offensive against government forces on Nov 27, sweeping swathes of Syrian territory from government control and toppling Assad’s government on Dec 8.

The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, had reported little real resistance from the country’s exhausted armed forces in some areas.

US warplanes

struck more than 75 ISIS targets

in Syria on Dec 8, hitting the group’s leaders, operatives and camps, the US military said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Dec 9 that ISIS would try to use this period in Syria “to

reestablish its capabilities

, to create safe havens. As our precision strikes over the weekend demonstrate, we are determined not to let that happen”. AFP