BEIRUT: The self-styled Islamic State (IS) group has executed more than 90 people, a third of them civilians, over the past month in areas of war-torn Syria it controls, a monitoring group said on Sunday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 32 civilians were among the 91 people executed for “crimes” in the terrorist group’s self-proclaimed ‘caliphate’ between July 29 and August 29.

The toll included IS members, rebel fighters and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Witchcraft, homosexual acts and working with the US-led coalition fighting IS in Iraq and Syria are among the “crimes” the group punishes with death.

Also read: IS blinds journalists with its barbarity

Since it announced its ‘caliphate’ in June last year, IS has swept across Syria, seizing swathes of land in central Hama and Homs provinces, Deir Ezzor and Hasakeh in the east, and the north’s Raqa and Aleppo areas.

According to the Britain-based Observatory, the latest monthly toll has brought to 3,156 people the number of IS executions in Syria since the ‘caliphate’ was announced. The number includes 1,841 civilians.

IS has become notorious for its gruesome displays of violence, often shown in videos posted on the internet, including beheadings, stoning and pushing victims off rooftops.

The US-led coalition has been bombarding IS in Syria since September 2014.

On Saturday, eight IS fighters were killed in a coalition air raid on Raqa, the de facto capital of their ‘caliphate’.

Further west, in Aleppo province, IS has been fiercely attacking rebel groups and its militant rivals, Al Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

Late on Saturday, an IS car bomb on Tal Rifaat in Aleppo province killed 11 fighters and eight civilians.

Tal Rifaat is on a key rebel supply route from the Turkish border to the north. It is near Marea, the main rebel stronghold in Aleppo that has been under fierce IS attack for months and is now completely encircled by the jihadists.

On Sunday, 15 civilians --- among them six children --- were killed in government bombardment of the major rebel bastion of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The toll included five civilians in the town of Saqba and three in Hamuriyeh, killed in air raids.

It also included five civilians killed by shelling in Douma, a rebel-held town devastated by regime attacks.

In Damascus itself, shelling of the Maysat district killed three people and wounded seven, the Observatory said.

More than 240,000 people have been killed in Syria’s conflict, which evolved from a popular anti-government movement to a brutal multi-front civil war.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2015

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