The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

In conjunction with the continued security chaos and assassinations in Idlib province, discontent prevails Saraqib town after “demolition tombstones” by members of two Islamic organizations in the city’s cemetery

Idlib province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: in the light of the security chaos in Idlib and in conjunction with the emergence of cells of ISIS, –which carried out assassinations and executions of tens of people and detonated booby trapped vehicles in the province–, sources informed the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that members of Hurras al-Dien organization and Hayyaat Tahrir al-Sham; entered Saraqib cemetery during the last 24 hours in the eastern sector of Idlib countryside and destroyed tombstones, where tens of members entered and smashed tombstones, under the pretext of ” settling them to the ground to become graves in accordance with Sharia”.

Demolishing the tombstones in Saraqib town has sparked resentment of the town’s residents and neighboring areas, where the locals accused both factions of trying to cover their failures in restoring the security in the province and resorting to side-actions, that would only provoke the people and create tension between them and between the factions which carry out such acts, where the Syrian Observatory documented that it rose to 139 people at least, in Idlib countryside and both Aleppo and Hama countryside, they are 35 civilians including 6 children and 2 women, of who were assassinated through bomb explosions, IED detonations, shooting, abduction, murder and then throwing the bodies in remote areas, and 88 fighters of Syrian nationality belong to Hayyaat Tahrir al-Sham, al-Sham Corps, the Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Izza, and other factions operating in Idlib, and 15 fighters of Uzbek, Asian, and Caucasian nationalities have been assassinated in the same ways since the 26th of April 2018, also the assassination attempts have injured tens of people with varying severity, while the factions stepped up their raids and operations against sleeper cells they accused of belonging to the “Islamic State” organization. And among the total number of casualties there are 62 persons, and they are: 17 civilians including a child and a woman, 37 Syrian fighters, and 3 Uzbek fighters; were killed by shooting and IED explosions in Idlib and the countryside of Hama and Aleppo.