160 troops slain by Islamic State in Syrian desert

U.N. force trapped in south

Armored vehicles from peacekeepers of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force wait to cross Thursday from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights to Syria.
Armored vehicles from peacekeepers of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force wait to cross Thursday from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights to Syria.

BEIRUT -- The Islamic State group killed more than 160 Syrian government troops seized in recent fighting, posting pictures Thursday of terrified young conscripts stripped down to their underwear before meeting their deaths in the arid Syrian countryside.

The slayings were the latest massacre attributed to the extremist group, which has terrorized rivals and civilians alike with widely publicized brutality in Syria and Iraq as it seeks to expand a self-declared state it has carved out on both sides of the border.

In southern Syria, meanwhile, gunmen detained 43 United Nations peacekeepers during fighting on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, the United Nations said. It added that another 81 peacekeepers were trapped in the area by heavy clashes between rebels and Syrian troops.

The mass killing of Syrian soldiers is part of a stepped-up campaign by Islamic State militants against President Bashar Assad's forces. Until recently, the group had been focused on eliminating rivals among the rebels who are fighting to topple Assad, systematically routing Western-backed opposition fighters and other Islamic factions from towns and villages in northern and eastern Syria as it expands.

More recently, the jihadists have turned their attention to Assad's forces, seizing a series of military bases in northeastern Raqqa province. In the process, they have killed hundreds of pro-government forces, beheading some and later displaying their severed heads on poles and fences and posting the pictures online.

photo

AP

Israeli soldiers watch Thursday as armored vehicles from the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force cross from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights to Syria.

Most of those most recently killed were rounded up Wednesday near the Tabqa airfield three days after Islamic State fighters seized the base. The government troops were among a large group of soldiers from the base who were stuck behind front lines after it fell to the jihadi fighters.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about 120 captive government troops from Tabqa were killed near the base. Islamic State fighters also killed at least another 40 soldiers, most of whom were taken prisoner in recent fighting at other bases in the Hamrat region near Raqqa city, the group's stronghold.

A statement posted online and circulated on Twitter claimed the extremists killed about 200 government prisoners captured near Tabqa. It also showed photographs of what it said were the prisoners: young men stripped down to their underwear marching in the desert, some with their hands behind their heads.

The group also posted a video showing Islamic State fighters forcing the barefoot men to march through the desert. Another video later showed dozens of bodies piled in the desert, alongside others lying motionless -- apparently dead -- in a row in the sand.

While the videos could not be independently confirmed, they appeared to illustrate the claims made online by the Islamic State group and Syrian opposition activists about the mass killing.

Anger broke out Thursday after a normally pro-government Facebook page dedicated to the soldiers stationed at the base posted the videos.

"Stop circulating false news," wrote one commenter under the name Zahraa al-Hassan. "They are driving our soldiers like a herd of sheep."

Al-Hassan called the Assad government "a filthy failure that has destroyed the country's trees and people and allowed [the Islamic State] to rise."

Many comments posted on the site assailed Gen. Fahd Jassem al-Freij, the defense minister, who retained his post in a new Cabinet announced Wednesday despite the loss of three important military facilities to Islamic State fighters in little more than a month.

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government.

The release of the photos and videos underscores how the extremist group uses violence -- and images of violence -- to instill fear in its opponents and win recruits.

Earlier this month, Islamic State fighters shot hundreds of tribesmen in eastern Syria who had risen up against the group. Some were beheaded. Last week, they posted a video showing the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley in an attempt to halt U.S. airstrikes against the group in Iraq.

U.S. strategy

In Washington on Thursday, President Barack Obama played down the prospect of imminent U.S. military action against strongholds of the Islamic State in Syria, saying "we don't have a strategy yet" for confronting the militants.

Briefing reporters at the White House shortly before convening a meeting of his national security advisers to consider options on the issue, the president urged a regional approach that includes support from other Mideast nations.

It's time to "stop being ambivalent" about the aims of extremist groups like the Islamic State, Obama said. "They have no ideology beyond violence and chaos and the slaughter of innocent people."

A United Nations commission accused the Islamic State group Wednesday of committing crimes against humanity in Syria -- echoing U.N. accusations against the group in Iraq.

U.S. fighter planes conducted five strikes against the group in northern Iraq on Thursday, continuing a limited campaign aimed at helping Iraqi and Kurdish forces retake key territory and degrade the militants' capability.

U.S. Central Command said in a brief statement that the fighters destroyed a Humvee, a tank, four armed vehicles and a construction vehicle near the Mosul Dam on the Tigris River. They also damaged an Islamic State checkpoint.

The attacks Thursday increased to 106 the number of U.S. airstrikes in Iraq since Aug. 8.

The Obama administration is considering whether to expand its military effort against the Islamic State group to include airstrikes inside Syria, home to the group's declared capital of its self-declared caliphate -- or state ruled by Islamic law.

The president said he was dispatching Secretary of State John Kerry to the Middle East soon to discuss the matter with regional partners. Obama will also meet with world leaders in Europe next week during a NATO summit.

Some of Obama's top military advisers have said the Islamic State cannot be defeated unless the U.S. also goes after the group inside Syria. The president didn't rule out that possibility, but said that if he were to expand the military mission, he would consult with members of Congress, who are due to return to Washington in early September.

Obama rejected the notion raised by many political leaders and analysts that strikes inside Syria would have the effect of helping Assad in his civil war against Islamic State and other Syrian rebel groups.

"I don't think this is a situation where we have to choose," Obama said. "We have to give people inside Syria a choice other than [the Islamic State] or Assad. I don't see any scenario in which Assad is able to bring peace and stability" to his country.

Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande on Thursday ruled out an international partnership with Syria's leader to fight against the Islamic State, saying any alliance with Assad would play into the militants' hands.

Hollande said France would call an international conference to address the threat and said a broad alliance was needed.

"But I want to make sure things are clear: Bashar Assad cannot be a partner in the fight against terrorism," Hollande said. "He is a known ally of the jihadists. You cannot choose between two barbarities, because they feed on each other."

Civil war

The Islamic State group's surge is one aspect of Syria's multilayered civil war, a bloody conflict that has killed more than 190,000 people and destabilized the region.

The 43 U.N. peacekeepers were detained by an armed group early Thursday on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, where fighting has raged this week between Syrian rebels and government forces.

The U.N. said another 81 peacekeepers were being "restricted to their positions" in the vicinity of Ruwaihaniyeh and Burayqa.

The office of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon did not identify the armed group that was holding the peacekeepers. Several rebel groups operate in the Golan, while the Islamic State group has no known presence there.

"We are dealing with nonstate armed actors," said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general.

"We're not in a position to confirm who is holding whom. Some groups self-identified as being affiliated with al-Nusra; however, we are unable to confirm it," Dujarric said, referring to the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front.

He said the 43 detained peacekeepers were from Fiji while 81 troops from the Philippines have had their movements restricted.

The Syrian government denounced the "kidnapping" of the U.N. peacekeepers and called for their immediate release.

The peacekeepers are part of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, the mission that has been monitoring a 1974 accord between Syria and Israel after their 1973 war. As of July, the mission had 1,223 troops from six countries: Fiji, India, Ireland, Nepal, Netherlands and the Philippines.

Syrian rebels briefly abducted U.N. peacekeepers twice in 2013 before eventually releasing them unharmed.

Heavy fighting has engulfed the Syrian side of the Golan since Wednesday, when rebels captured a crossing on the disputed frontier with Israel. A rebel spokesman said the militants are focused on fighting Assad, and pose no threat to Israel.

On Thursday, government warplanes targeted several rebel positions in the area, including in the village of Jaba, Syrian activists said.

Information for this article was contributed by Zeina Karam, Ryan Lucas, Anna Cara, Bradley Klapper, Julie Pace and staff members of The Associated Press and by Ben Hubbard, Ali Hamza, Hwaida Saad, Peter Baker and Mohammed Ghannam of The New York Times.

A Section on 08/29/2014

Upcoming Events