ore than 2300 people killed in a month of intense clashes
More than 2300 people killed in a month of intense clashes, car bombs, and executions between the ISIS forces against islamist and rebel battalions
1747 people have been killed between Friday 3/1/2014, when the clashes began, and midnight of Tuesday 2/2/2014. The victims include 215 civilians, 21 were executed by the ISIS fighters in the children hospital in Qadi Askar neighbourhood of Aleppo, 1 executed by an infamous rebel battalion in the Meyser neighbourhood, and 7 Syrian kurdish civilians, including a family with 2 children, were executed and some decapitated by the ISIS in their detention centre in west Reef Aleppo. The rest were killed in the crossfire during the clashes and by car-bombs.
The ISIS publicly executed by decapitation 2 young men in Raqqah city for blaspheming.
979 combatants from the islamist and non-islamist rebel battalions were killed during the clashes, car bombs, and attacks on vehicles in the provinces of Aleppo, Raqqah, Hama, Homs, Deir Ezzour, Damascus and Idlib. the dead include 5 military commanders. 21 fighters were executed the children’s hospital of Aleppo. 32 were executed by the ISIS in Aleppo, Idlib, Homs and Raqqah provinces. 46 rebels from an islamist movement were executed by the ISIS near the Kentari area, Raqqah. 14 rebels were executed by the ISIS in the Syrian desert.
531 ISIS fighters were also amongst those killed. 34 of them were killed carrying out suicide explosions. 56 of them, as well as members of Jund al-Aqsa, were summarily executed by rebels in the Jabal al-Zawiya area of Reef Idlib, as confirmed by medical and local sources, while the others were killed by clashes. A Saudi member who is a Qur’an teacher was killed by rebels in Saraqeb (17/1/2014) after he went on a roof and shot in the air to alert residents that he has nothing to do with the clashes; his body was later dragged around the city. Rebels from islamist rebel battalions in north Aleppo declared that they killed ISIS’s second in command, who is known as Hajji Bakir, rebels claimed he was an officer in the old Iraqi army.
The bodies of 19 unidentified men were found in several bases of the ISIS in Aleppo province. Another body, and reports of 9 others, were found in a well in the town of Besqateen, activists and rebels accuse the ISIS of executing them and throwing them.
Worryingly the fate of hundreds of detainees taken months and weeks ago by the ISIS are still unknown. Also unknown is the fate of hundreds of ISIS captives.
The SOHR estimates that there are a further 600 combatants killed during these battles, but due to the secrecy on both sides it has been difficult to document. Several sources in west Aleppo province have reported that there are over 200 combatants between the two groups by the 111th base, clashes took place from 10-13 January. Cases of cover up can also be seen in the cases of the syrian dessert, and north and east Aleppo province. Sources also report tens of combatant detainees were executed by the ISIS in Aleppo and Raqqah.
With the clashes reaching a month in several provinces, the international community and organisations are still standing aside and watching the catastrophe continue, some even working on intensifying the clashes. We at the SOHR, despite being heavily attacked by all sides, will continue our work to document, verify and publish all war crimes committed in Syria regardless of the victim or the perpetrator.