Video shows execution of Syrian rebels by radicals

BEIRUT: Al Qaeda-linked militants have executed the commander of a rival rebel faction and six of his men, an amateur video of the public execution showed, part of their campaign to marginalize other groups.
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad, have taken advantage of a power vacuum in rebel-held areas to assert its authority over more moderate elements of the armed opposition.
The video, posted online by the anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group on Wednesday, shows armed men in black standing below an ISIL banner.
The Observatory said the video was taken in the northern Syrian town of Atarib in Idlib province. Its authenticity could not be independently confirmed.
A masked man on the video identifies seven men kneeling as members of the Ghurabaa Al-Sham brigade, a moderate group that was one of the first to fight Assad. A man who appeared to be Commander Hassan Jazera was among them.
“Hassan Jazera is the most corrupt and the biggest thief,” said the man. He spoke into a microphone to a crowd of men, some of whom used their mobile phones to film the killing.
The man, reading from a piece of paper, said Jazera’s men were also charged with kidnapping and had been tried in a religious court run by ISIL. They were then shot in the head.
In May, an alliance of groups moved against Ghurabaa Al-Sham following a disagreement over territory and complaints of looting. Jazera’s unit of around 100 fighters was all that was left of Ghurabaa Al-Sham’s roughly 2,000 men, fighters from that group told Reuters this summer.
Jazera and his men were arrested by ISIL a month ago, the UK-based Observatory said.
Meanwhile, Syria’s army recaptured Deir Attiyeh on Thursday, state television said, six days after rebel fighters seized the town on the strategic highway between Damascus and the central city of Homs.
“Our heroic army has taken total control of the town of Deir Attiyeh in Damascus province after it crushed the terrorists’ last enclaves there,” said the broadcaster, citing a military source.
Speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, a high-ranking security official in Damascus confirmed the report, adding that “operations to expel the terrorists from nearby areas are ongoing.”
Most of the rebel fighters who had taken up positions in Deir Attiyeh were “crushed,” the security official said, adding that the town had been “cleansed.”
Home to around 10,000 people, Deir Attiyeh is located in the Qalamoun region north of Damascus and along the Lebanese border.