Islamic State has crushed a pocket of resistance to its control in eastern Syria, crucifying two people and executing 23 others in the past five days, a monitoring group said yesterday.
The insurgents, who are also making rapid advances in Iraq, are tightening their grip in Syria, of which they now controls roughly a third, mostly rural areas in the north and east.
The group, an al Qaeda offshoot, has fought the Syrian army, Kurdish militias and Sunni Muslim tribal forces.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring organization, and residents in Syria’s east said that fighters from the al-Sheitaat tribe in eastern Deir al-Zor had tried to resist Islamic State’s advance this month.
In al-Shaafa, a town on the banks of the Euphrates river, Islamic State beheaded two men from the al-Sheitaat clan on Sunday, the Observatory said, and gave residents a 12-hour deadline on Monday to hand over members of the tribe.
In other parts of Deir al-Zor province, the militants crucified two men for the crime of “dealing with apostates” in the city of Mayadin, and two others for blasphemy in the nearby town of al-Bulel, the Observatory said.
Islamic State has made rapid gains in Syria since it seized northern Iraq’s largest city, Mosul, on June 10, and declared an Islamic caliphate on territory it controls in Syria and Iraq.
The Observatory said a further 19 men from the al-Sheitaat tribe were executed on Thursday, 18 shot dead and one beheaded, on the outskirts of Deir al-Zor city. It said the men worked at an oil installation.
“No one will now dare from the other tribes to move against Islamic State after the defeat of the al-Sheitaat,” said Ahmad Ziyada al-Qaissi, an Islamic State sympathizer contacted by Skype from Mayadin.