Tide of unrest: Al Qaeda affiliate executes 56 regime troops in Syria

The mass killing happened a few days at an airbase in the Idlib province

BEIRUT: Al Qaeda's Syria affiliate and its insurgent allies have executed at least 56 regime troops at a military airport they recently seized in the country’s northwest, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the mass killing at Abu Duhur air base happened a few days ago, citing sources on the ground. The base in Idlib province was captured by an alliance of groups including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front on September 9.

"We confirmed it yesterday in the evening, via people who witnessed it, and via some pictures that arrived - the execution happened," Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Observatory, said, speaking by telephone. He said the insurgents shot dead the regime fighters, who were being held as prisoners, ‘execution-style’ inside the airport.

When the air base fell to insurgents, Syrian state TV said the forces defending it had withdrawn after a two-year siege.  It was the last position held by the Syrian military in Idlib province. The Observatory said a total of 71 members of government forces had been executed at Abu Duhur air base since its capture.

According to the monitoring group, the executions were carried out by the Nusra Front, the Turkistan Islamic Party, and other extremist groups. The Turkistan Islamic Party is one of the groups fighting in northwestern Syria, where it has claimed a role in several major insurgent advances this year.

The Nusra Front is a leading member of an alliance of extremist forces called the ‘Army of Conquest’, which has seized almost all of Idlib province except for Fuaa and Kafraya, two regime-controlled villages inhabited by Shiite Muslims.

It ramped up its assault on the two villages on Friday, detonating at least nine car bombs, seven of which were suicide bombers, the Observatory said. The attack left at least 21 regime loyalists and 17 Army of Conquest militants dead. One of the suicide bombers managed to enter Fuaa itself and killed seven civilians, including two children, Abdel Rahman said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2015.