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 marginalise other groups.
The
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, fighting to overthrow
President Bashar al-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 Islamist 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 Islamist 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.
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