Rights Group: Senior IS ‘Policeman’ Beheaded in Syria

A senior figure from the self-declared police force of the Islamic State has been beheaded in a Syrian province, a Britain-based monitoring group said Tuesday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also says Kurdish forces may be on the verge of recapturing a key border town from Islamic State militants.

The Observatory’s Rami Abdurrahman says the man, known as a senior IS police official, was found in the eastern Syrian province Deir-al-Zor. He says the body displayed signs of torture and was found with a cigarette in the mouth; Abdurrahman says it is not clear who killed him.

The Observatory also reports that two Islamic State militants were attacked by unknown assailants in the Deir-al-Zor city of al-Mayadeen.

The death and attacks come a day after Kurdish forces made major gains in the Syrian border town Kobani. Abdurrahman says fighting was ongoing Tuesday, with IS militants continuing to lose control. “They are losing again some buildings and some roads on the south-east of Security Square,” said Abdurrahman.

Kobani is a strategically important town on the border between Turkey and Syria, which IS fighters first attacked in September.

But with support from U.S.-led airstrikes and reinforced by Kurds from Iraq, according to Abdurrahman, Kurdish fighters have taken back around 80 percent of the area.

 

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