10 Daesh members executed by rival militants in northwest Syria

Ten members of Daesh were summarily executed in Syria’s Idlib province on Saturday by Tahrir Al-Sham, according to a report by Ebaa News Agency, cited by Reuters.  Ebaa is a news outlet that supports the rival militant alliance.

Ebaa said the executions were in response to a Daesh suicide bomb attack at a restaurant in Idlib a day earlier. At least eight people were killed and dozens were wounded in the attack, including a British citizen who went to a Syria as an aid worker, a charity he formerly worked for confirmed yesterday.

Abdul Haq, 46, a convert to Islam, travelled to Syria in 2015 with British-based Anaya Aid. He subsequently chose to stay and establish his own charity for refugees, which operated the restaurant, Fusion, targeted in the attack.

“He was [a] brave man who left his comfortable life and job in the UK to help victims of war. The incident shows the ongoing risk to aid workers from warring factions in Syria.  He will be dearly missed,” Anaya Aid chair Mohammed T Malik said in a statement.

Daesh has lost virtually all its territory to the Syrian army, backed by Russia, Iran and Shia Muslim militias, and a rival campaign by Kurdish and Arab groups in the north supported by the United States.

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Ebaa quoted Anis Al-Shami, a security official from Tahrir Al-Sham, saying that the executions “today at the scene of the crime are fair punishment which might deter them and wake them from their stupor”.

It published images showing masked gunmen in fatigues firing handguns at the heads of ten bearded men who sat in front of them on the pavement. Reuters could not independently verify the agency’s report.

Tahrir Al-Sham is the main jihadist group in northwest Syria, with a large armed presence throughout Idlib including along the Turkish border.

Daesh, which seized large swathes of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, now faces final territorial defeat in a tiny enclave in eastern Syria.