Daesh kills at least 80 in its retreat from Al Qaryatayn

The bodies of at least 80 Syrian civilians, many summarily killed by Daesh, have been discovered in Al Qaryatayn, a central town in Syria retaken from Daesh by regime forces over the weekend, activists said on Monday.

Some were shot in the street as Daesh militants retreated from the town, gunned down because they were suspected of working with the Syrian regime, according to activists. 

At least 35 of the casualties were found shot and their bodies dumped in a shaft.

The news of the gruesome find in the town of Al Qaryatayn, in Homs province, began to emerge first late on Sunday. The number of bodies is likely to climb.

On Saturday, Syrian regime forces and allied militias regained control of the town, which was held by Daesh for three weeks. The regime-run Syrian Central Military Media at the time said the regime forces and its allies restored security and stability to Al Qaryatayn after clearing the town of Daesh fighters.

TRT World's Nafisa Latic has this report.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had documented the killings of at least 128 people killed in Al Qaryatayn during the last days of Daesh's control of the town.

The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdurrahman, said what happened in the town was a "massacre."

Number likely to rise

The activist-run Palmyra Coordination Committee published the names of 67 of the civilians confirmed killed and also said the number was likely to rise. It said at least 35 were found shot and dumped into a deep shaft.

The activist-run group said other bodies were also found in the town streets – apparently of people shot by pro-regime forces and suspected of working with Daesh. The Observatory also said it documented at least 12 killed at the hands of pro-regime forces after they regained control of the town.

Further retreat of Daesh

Daesh militants first seized Al Qaryatayn in August 2015 and relied on the strategically located town to defend another of their bastions, the historic city of Palmyra. At the time, thousands of the town's Christian residents fled, fearing the group's brutality.

With Russian backing, Syrian regime forces regained control of the town in April 2016. But Daesh, facing major setbacks around Syria and Iraq, launched a new attack on the town in late September and recaptured it.

At the time, Russia accused the United States, which is battling Daesh, of looking the other way and allowing the group to attack Al Qaryatayn.

Most of the Daesh militants who were involved in attacks on the town were local residents. Pro-regime media blamed the loss of Al Qaryatayn for the second time on what it described as militant "sleeper cells."

There was no immediate comment from the regime in Damascus on the find of the civilian bodies in Al Qaryatayn.