IS said to execute 100 foreign fighters who wanted to quit
The Islamic State extremist group has executed 100 of its own foreign fighters who tried to flee their headquarters in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the Financial Times newspaper said Saturday.
An activist opposed to both IS and the regime
of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is well-known to the British
business broadsheet, said he had “verified 100 executions” of foreign IS
fighters trying to leave the jihadist group’s de facto capital.
IS fighters in Raqqa said the group has
created a military police to clamp down on foreign fighters who do not
report for duty. Dozens of homes have been raided and many jihadists
have been arrested, the FT reported.
Some jihadists have become disillusioned with the realities of fighting in Syria, reports have said.
According to the British press in October,
five Britons, three French, two Germans and two Belgians wanted to
return home after complaining that they ended up fighting against other
rebel groups rather than Assad’s regime. They were being held prisoner
by IS.
In total, between 30 and 50 Britons want to
return but fear they face jail, according to researchers at the
International Centre for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College
London, which had been contacted by one of the jihadists speaking on
their behalf.
Since a US-led coalition began a campaign of
airstrikes against IS in August, the extremist group has lost ground to
local forces and seen the number of its fighters killed rise
significantly.
There have been a string of apparent setbacks for IS in recent weeks.
Iraqi Kurds claimed Thursday to have broken a siege on a mountain where Yazidi civilians and fighters have long been trapped.
The Kurdish advances came during a two-day
blitz in the Sinjar region involving 8,000 peshmerga fighters and some
of the heaviest airstrikes since a US-led coalition started an air
campaign four months ago.
Meanwhile Thursday, the Pentagon said several IS leaders had been killed in US airstrikes.
In 40 days across October and November, some
2,000 air raids killed more than 500 people, according to the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, which
relies on a network of sources on the ground.
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