XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: uy@libscum.com   
      
   Damascus: Islamic State fighters have seized a Syrian army base   
   in the northern province of Raqa, killing scores of troops and   
   beheading some of them, a monitoring group said Saturday.   
      
   The takeover of the base of Division 17 came as the UN   
   Commission of Inquiry on Syria said on Friday that IS fighters   
   accused of atrocities would be added to a list of war crimes   
   indictees.   
      
   In the two-day assault on the base in Raqa province, an IS   
   bastion, the jihadists killed at least 85 soldiers, the Syrian   
   Observatory for Human Rights said.   
      
   More than 50 troops were summarily executed, 19 others were   
   killed in a double suicide bombing and at least 16 more died in   
   the assault launched early Thursday.   
      
   Hundreds of troops "withdrew on Friday to safe places -- either   
   to nearby villages whose residents oppose IS or to nearby   
   Brigade 93 -- but the fate of some 200 remains unknown,"   
   Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.   
      
   "Some of the executed troops were beheaded, and their bodies and   
   severed heads put on display in Raqa city," an IS stronghold, he   
   told AFP.   
      
   Video shot by jihadists and distributed on YouTube showed IS   
   fighters apparently inside Division 17 living quarters burning a   
   portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.   
      
   The jihadists also posted photographs online of the bodies of   
   decapitated soldiers strewn across the ground.In one, six   
   bloodied heads were lined up together on the ground, and in   
   another three heads lay in a field.   
      
   Pictures of headless bodies, most wearing military uniform, were   
   also distributed on the Internet.   
      
   Abdel Rahman said IS intended the display as "a message to the   
   people of Raqa, to tell them it is strong, that it isn't going   
   anywhere, and to terrify" opponents.   
      
   Also in northern Syria, 30 troops and pro-regime paramilitaries   
   were killed in an overnight ambush in Aleppo province, the   
   Observatory said.   
      
   IS, which first emerged in Syria's war in spring 2013, has since   
   imposed its near-total control in Raqa province and Deir Ezzor   
   on the Iraq border.   
      
   In June, the jihadist group proclaimed an Islamic "caliphate"   
   straddling Syria and Iraq.   
      
   Despite opposition by poorly-armed rebels fighting both the army   
   and IS, the jihadists have made advances in several areas of   
   Syria, whose three-year war has killed more than 170,000 people.   
      
   "There is a clear shift in the IS strategy. It has moved from   
   consolidating its total control in areas under its grip. It is   
   now spreading," said Abdel Rahman.   
      
   "For IS, fighting the regime is not about bringing down Assad.   
   It is about expanding its control," he said.IS was emboldened by   
   a June offensive in Iraq when swathes of the north and west fell   
   out of Baghdad's control.   
      
   Syrian rebels say IS transported a large amount of heavy weapons   
   captured from fleeing Iraqi troops into Syria.   
      
   On Friday, Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, who heads the UN Commission   
   of Inquiry on Syria, said IS "are good candidates for the list"   
   of possible war crime indictees.   
      
   "I can assure you that we are collecting information on   
   perpetrators from all sides," he told reporters in New York.   
      
   Syria's al Qaeda affiliate the Al-Nusra Front meanwhile released   
   a video of a young US suicide bomber from Florida who blew   
   himself up at an army post in the northwest on May 25.   
      
   Moner Mohammad Abu Salha, alias Abu Hurayra al-Amriki, was   
   believed to be the first American national to carry out such an   
   attack in Syria's more than three-year-old war.   
      
   The Observatory also reported six children and three women were   
   among 15 civilians killed on Friday in rebel mortar fire on army-   
   held areas of Aleppo city.   
      
   Regime air strikes, meanwhile, killed seven civilians, including   
   three children, in opposition-held areas of Aleppo.   
      
   Once Syria's commercial capital, the northern metropolis has   
   been divided into regime and rebel-held areas since July 2012.   
      
   Elsewhere in Aleppo province, a child was killed when a regime   
   helicopter was shot down over the army-controlled Palestinian   
   refugee camp of Nairab, the Observatory said.   
      
   http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/jihadists-seize-syria-army-   
   base-behead-soldiers-ngo_950386.html   
      
       
      
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