Most of the executed people are former government officers of Bashar al-Assad.
Fighters affiliated with Syria's new Islamist authorities carried out 35 summary executions over the past three days, mostly targeting officers of Bashar al-Assad's regime, an NGO stated this Sunday, 26 January. Meanwhile, the new Syrian authorities, established with the backing of Islamist rebels who overthrew Bashar al-Assad last month, indicated that they had carried out numerous arrests in the Homs region (west) in recent days, without however confirming the accusation of executions.
The official Syrian news agency Sana briefly reported that the authorities had intervened on Friday against a «criminal group that had committed crimes against the population while impersonating members of the security services». However, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, «these arrests follow serious crimes and summary executions that have cost the lives of 35 people in the last 72 hours». The same NGO states that «members of religious minorities have been subjected to humiliations».
Civilian casualties in numerous villages in the Homs region
Most of the people executed are former government officers of Bashar al-Assad, who presented themselves at centres set up by the new authorities, according to the London-based NGO, which has a network of observers in Syria. «Dozens of members of local armed groups under the control of the new ruling Sunni Islamist coalition, who had taken part in security operations in the Homs region, have been arrested,» according to the Observatory.
According to the same source, these groups successfully carried out reprisals and settled old scores with members of the Alawite minority, to which Bashar al-Assad's clan belongs, taking advantage of the chaos, the abundance of weapons and their ties with the new authorities. The NGO also noted «mass arbitrary arrests, attacks on religious symbols, the mutilation of corpses, and brutal summary executions of civilians which, according to it, showed an unprecedented level of cruelty and violence».
The Civil Peace Group, a Syrian civil society organisation, stated in a recent press release that civilian casualties did indeed occur in numerous villages in the Homs region during the takeover of power by the new regime in Damascus. The group also condemned, in particular, the murder of unarmed men. Members of the Alawite minority have expressed fears of reprisals for the abuses committed for decades by the Assad clan.
Compiled with AFP
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