Saturday, May 23, 2015
Associated Press
BEIRUT
Islamic State group militants hunted down Syrian government troops and loyalists in the newly captured town of Palmyra, shooting or beheading them in public as a warning, and imposing their strict interpretation of Islam, activists said Friday.
The purge, which relied mostly on informants, was aimed at solidifying the extremists’ grip on the strategic town that was overrun Wednesday by IS fighters.
It also was part of a campaign to win the support of President Bashar Assad’s opponents, who have suffered from a government crackdown in the town and surrounding province in the past four years of Syria’s civil war.
The capture of Palmyra has raised alarm that the militants might try to destroy one of the Mideast’s most spectacular archaeological sites – a well-preserved, 2,000-year-old Roman-era city on the town’s edge – as they have destroyed others in Syria and Iraq.