Region

BEIRUT — The honeymoon was a brief moment for love, away from the front lines of Syria's war. In the capital of the Daesh group's self-proclaimed "caliphate”, Syrian fighter Abu Bilal Al Homsi was united with his Tunisian bride for the first time after months chatting online. They married, then passed the days dining on grilled meats in Raqqa's restaurants, strolling along the Euphrates River and eating ice cream.

It was all made possible by the marriage bonus he received from the Daesh group: $1,500 for him and his wife to get started on a new home, a family — and a honeymoon.

"It has everything one would want for a wedding," Homsi said of Raqqa — a riverside provincial capital that in the 18 months since Daesh took control has seen militants beheading opponents and stoning alleged adulteresses in public. Gunmen at checkpoints scrutinise passersby for signs of anything they see as a violation of Shariah, or Islamic law, as slight as a hint of hair gel. In the homes of some of the Daesh commanders in the city are women and girls from the Yazidi religious sect, abducted in Iraq and now kept as sex slaves.

The Daesh group is notorious for the atrocities it committed as it overran much of Syria and neighbouring Iraq. But to its supporters, it is engaged in an ambitious project: Building a new nation ruled by what radicals see as "God's law”, made up of Muslims from around the world whose old nationalities have been erased and who have been united in the "caliphate”.

To do that, the group has set up a generous welfare system to help settle and create lives for the thousands of jihadists — men and women — who have flocked to Daesh territory from the Arab world, Europe, Central Asia and the United States.

"It is not just fighting," said Homsi, who uses a nom de guerre. "There are institutions.There are civilians [that Daesh] is in charge of, and wide territories. It must help the immigrants marry. These are the components of a state and it must look after its subjects." Homsi spoke in a series of interviews with the Associated Press by Skype, giving a rare look into the personal life of an Daesh jihadi.

The new Daesh elite is visible in Raqqa, the biggest city in Syria under the extremists' rule.

Luxury houses and apartments, which once belonged to officials from the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, have been taken over by the new Daesh ruling class, according to a member of an anti-Daesh media collective in the city who goes by the name of Abu Ibrahim Al Raqqawi.

Raqqa, at the centre of Daesh-controlled territory, is cushioned from the fighting around its edges. Its supermarkets are well stocked and it boasts several internet cafés.

"The city is stable, has all the services and all that is needed. It is not like rural areas the group controls," Raqqawi said. "Raqqa is now the new New York" of the caliphate. Like others in his media collective, he uses a nickname for his security and doesn't specify his whereabouts.

Helping fighters marry is a key priority. Aside from the normal stipend, foreign fighters receive $500 when they marry to help them start a family. The 28-year-old Homsi got a particularly large bonus because his new wife is a doctor and speaks four languages.

TEHRAN — An Iranian security court on Tuesday began the closed-door espionage trial of an Iranian-American reporter for The Washington Post who has been detained for more than 10 months.

Jason Rezaian, the Post's 39-year-old bureau chief in Tehran, is being tried in a revolutionary court on allegations of "espionage for the hostile government of the United States" and propaganda against the Islamic republic, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported.

The IRNA report did not elaborate. Rezaian's brother, Ali, later told the Associated Press in Washington that the proceeding largely involved him hearing the charges. Rezaian's lawyer, Leila Ahsan, could not be reached for comment.

The Post has said Rezaian faces up to 10 to 20 years in prison.

Rezaian, his wife Yeganeh Salehi and two photojournalists were detained on July 22 in Tehran. All were later released except Rezaian, who was born and spent most of his life in the United States, and who holds both American and Iranian citizenship. Iran does not recognise other nationalities for its citizens.

Salehi, wearing a traditional black Islamic veil, refused to talk to waiting reporters as she left the courthouse after the hearing Tuesday. She looked upset and covered her face with the scarf as she departed in a yellow taxi, sitting in the backseat next to an older woman. The Post later reported Rezaian's mother, Mary Rezaian, had accompanied her to court, but also could not attend.

Last week, Rezaian's lawyer said Salehi, who is a reporter for The National newspaper in the United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi, and a freelance photographer who worked for foreign media, also will stand trial. The photographer's name has not been made public.

The Post and US diplomats have criticised Rezaian's detention and the handling of the case. Salehi has been barred from travelling abroad, the Post said, adding that its requests for a visa for a senior editor to travel to Iran went unanswered.

"There is no justice in this system, not an ounce of it, and yet the fate of a good, innocent man hangs in the balance," Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron said in a statement. "Iran is making a statement about its values in its disgraceful treatment of our colleague, and it can only horrify the world community."

Ali Rezaian said he believed Iranian authorities had two main documents they were using at his brother's trial.

One was a form letter Rezaian submitted online in 2008 after the election of US President Barack Obama, offering to help "break down barriers" between America and Iran, his brother said. The other was an American visa application he filled out for his wife that asked for it to be expedited at the time because of a looming Iranian election, noting "sometimes it's not the best place to be as a journalist”, his brother said.

"There are other specific pieces of evidence that we believe that they are going to use to support the charges, but what I can say is that those are two of the most significant ones," Ali Rezaian said. "So I think you can see what kinds of evidence they are basing their entire case on, and that's taken 310 days of my brother's life."

US officials repeatedly have pressed Iran to release Rezaian and other jailed Americans, including during talks on the sidelines of negotiations over Tehran's contested nuclear programme. Iran and world powers hope to reach a comprehensive agreement on the programme by the end of June to ease economic sanctions on Tehran in exchange for it limiting its uranium enrichment.

The judge assigned to hear Rezaian's case, Abolghassem Salavati, is known for his tough sentencing. He has presided over numerous politically sensitive cases, including those of protesters arrested in connection with demonstrations that followed the 2009 presidential elections.

IRNA said Rezaian's hearing ended after a few hours, and that Salavati would decide on the date of the next one, without providing further details.

His brother said Rezaian just wants to prove his innocence.

"He'd never do anything malicious to hurt Iran, or the United States," Ali Rezaian said. "And we want to be as loud and clear to everybody in the world."

CAIRO — Egyptian authorities are investigating the killing of a university student by police, a judicial official said Tuesday, the latest in series of cases alleging brutality by security forces.

The death of engineering student Islam Ateto on May 19 has become a major topic on Egyptian television talk shows and in newspapers in recent days, as his family and colleagues say he was last seen alive in class taking an exam. Security officials, meanwhile, have insisted Ateto was an Islamic militant belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group and was wanted over the killing of a police officer last month.

While Egypt's interior ministry says it is fighting terrorism, police officers have faced accusations of killing detainees. In the past two days alone, at least four officers have been prosecuted on charges of sexually assaulting or fatally beating detainees. On Sunday, Egypt's state news agency MENA reported that a Giza court sentenced a police officer to life in prison after convicting him in charges of sexually assaulting a female detainee.

In Ateto's case, a judicial official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorised to brief reporters, said Tuesday that a Cairo prosecutor summoned police officers over the killing. The official said that a preliminary forensic report showed Ateto died from five gunshot wounds.

The Engineering Students' Union of Ain Shams University has alleged plainclothes security officials entered the school and took Ateto away to be killed. The university's administration called the allegation "not true”, saying unreleased surveillance footage showed Ateto leaving unaccompanied.

The interior ministry has said Ateto, who it described as a Brotherhood "operative”, was killed in a gunbattle with police after he was spotted in a deserted area. His family has denied Ateto belonged to the Brotherhood, from which ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi hails.

Egypt's government has branded the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation after a wave of bombings and killings following Morsi's ouster in 2013 and security forces breaking up Islamist protest sit-ins, leaving hundreds dead.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said the US and its allies need to examine whether they are deploying military assets effectively against Daesh militants as Iraq mounts a new offensive to recapture critical territory west of Baghdad.

The White House says it already is responding to demands by Iraqi fighters for more powerful anti-tank weapons to confront armoured vehicles that Daesh has used as potent and deadly car bombs.

The US attention to supplying higher-grade military equipment came after Defence Secretary Ash Carter over the weekend criticised Iraqi forces, saying their men fled Daesh advance on Ramadi without fighting back.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest defended Carter's remarks, saying the Iraqi government acknowledged that the setback in Ramadi was the result of a breakdown in command and planning. Moreover, Earnest said, the Iraqi forces in Ramadi had not benefited from US or allied training.

Obama, speaking at the end of a meeting with visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, did not respond to questions about Carter's comments. But he did say the challenge posed by Daesh in Iraq and Syria and the turmoil in Libya have forced NATO to look south as well as east in the alliance's mission.

"That means an increase in defence capacity building with other countries like Iraq or [Persian Gulf] countries that are interested in working with us, as well as the African Union," he said. "It also means we have to think about whether we are deploying and arranging our assets effectively to meet that challenge."

Asked to elaborate on the president's comments, Earnest said: "There have been some concerns raised by some fighters that they have not gotten the kind of equipment that they need to fight ISIL."

"The president and the rest of the administration have vowed to work closely with the Iraq government to make sure that this military equipment is getting got where it is needed," he said.

Earnest praised Iraq's announcement that it had launched a major military operation to drive the Daesh from the western Anbar province. The Iraqi troops are out to retake the Sunni heartland where the extremist group captured the provincial capital of Ramadi.

Obama said the upheaval in the Middle East and the "increasingly aggressive posture that Russia has taken" in Ukraine has created a "challenging and important time for NATO”. He said NATO would continue to support Ukraine.

Obama said NATO would be a crucial player in providing training and assistance to Afghanistan following the drawdown of NATO troops. He said it was important that NATO countries properly contribute to that post-draw-down mission.

BAGHDAD — Iraq's Shiite paramilitaries announced on Tuesday they had taken charge of the campaign to drive Daesh from the western province of Anbar, giving the operation an openly sectarian codename that could infuriate its Sunni population.

The Iraqi government is scrambling to reverse its biggest military setback in nearly a year, the fall of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province west of Baghdad. Prime Minister Haider Abadi has vowed to recapture it within days.

Ramadi's fall a week ago was swiftly followed by the fall of the city of Palmyra in Syria, the two biggest gains by Daesh fighters since the United States began targeting them with air strikes in both Iraq and Syria last year.

Daesh controls swathes of territory in both countries, where it has proclaimed a caliphate to rule over all Muslims according to strict mediaeval precepts.

The simultaneous advances over the past week at opposite ends of the group's territory have raised doubts about the US strategy to bomb the militants from the air but leave fighting on the ground to local Iraqi and Syrian forces.

In Iraq, the regular military's failure to hold Ramadi has forced the government to send Iran-backed Shiite paramilitaries to help retake the city. Washington is worried this could enrage residents in the overwhelmingly Sunni province and push them into the arms of Daesh.

A spokesman for the Shiite militias, known as Hashid Shaabi, said the codename for the new operation would be "Labaik ya Hussein", a slogan in honour of a grandson of Prophet Mohammad killed in the 7th Century battle that spawned the schism between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

"The Labaik Ya Hussein operation is led by the Hashid Shaabi in cooperation and coordination with the armed forces there," Assadi said at a televised news conference. "We believe that liberating Ramadi will not take long."

Alienation

The militia fighters have performed better on the battlefield than Iraq's own army, but their presence risks alienating the Sunni residents of the area, especially if they emphasise sectarian aims.

Washington hopes Iraq's Shiite-led government can win the support of Sunni tribal fighters, the tactic US Marines used in Anbar to defeat Daesh's Al Qaeda predecessors during the deadliest phase of the 2003-2011 US occupation of Iraq.

Any increase in sectarian rage plays into the hands of Daesh, which promotes itself as the only force capable of protecting Sunnis from Shiite aggression, considers all Shiites to be heretics who must repent or die, and seeks to provoke a wider sectarian battle to hasten the apocalypse.

The Baghdad government has succeeded in persuading some Sunni tribal leaders to accept help from the Shiite fighters, but mistrust runs deep after years of sectarian war in which atrocities were committed on both sides.

Iraqi government forces and the Shiite militia have been pushing back towards Ramadi since Saturday in the Euphrates River valley, west of Baghdad.

President Barack Obama, who won office in 2008 on a campaign pledge to withdraw US troops from Iraq, has ruled out sending ground forces to fight against Daesh.

Instead, Iran has filled the vacuum, providing aid and leadership to the Hashid Shaabi Shiite militia forces.

The commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the main Iranian force backing its allies abroad, mocked Washington for doing too little to aid Baghdad.

"Obama has not done a damn thing so far to confront Daesh. Doesn't that show that there is no will in America to confront it?" Qassem Soleimani, said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

"How is it that America claims to be protecting the Iraqi government, when a few kilometres away in Ramadi killings and war crimes are taking place and they are doing nothing?" said the Iranian general, who was spotted in recent weeks on the battlefield helping to lead the Iraqi Shiite militia.

Soleimani's remarks came a day after US Defence Secretary Ash Carter infuriated Baghdad by saying the Iraqi army had abandoned Ramadi because it lacked "the will to fight", remarks Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi said showed Carter was misinformed.

In a move of apparent damage control after Carter's comments, Vice President Joe Biden phoned Abadi on Monday to reassure him that Washington still supported Baghdad.

Although Washington backs the government in Iraq, it is opposed to Daesh's other main enemy, the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad, a position which makes forging a united alliance against the militants difficult.

Assad, an Iranian ally, is fighting a range of mainly Sunni insurgent groups in a four-year-old civil war that has killed more than a quarter of a million people and made 8 million homeless. His government has lost ground in recent months to Daesh and other Sunni groups, including a local branch of Al Qaeda and groups that have Western and Arab support.

On Monday, the Syrian air force pounded Palmyra, some 240km northeast of the capital, in a bid to dislodge Daesh fighters who seized it last week. The city of 50,000 people is also home to some of the world's oldest and best-preserved ancient Roman ruins.

Daesh boasts that its fighters carry out mass killings in towns and cities that they seize, and dynamite and bulldoze ancient monuments they consider evidence of paganism.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says the fighters killed more than 200 people, including children, after capturing the city.

Syria's government-run satellite television stations were interrupted on Tuesday by what Damascus said was interference by its foreign enemies.

CAIRO/ADEN, Yemen — Seven members of a family were killed in an overnight strike by Saudi-led warplanes on a border village in northern Yemen, residents said, as heavy clashes erupted across the frontier after Houthi fire killed one Saudi citizen.

In southern Yemen, the Saudi-led air force launched nearly 20 raids on Houthi fighters in the port city of Aden, while fighters allied with exiled president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi made advances near the Houthi-controlled Al Anad military base.

Saudi-led forces have been targeting fighters of the Iranian-allied Houthi group and supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh since in March, part of a campaign to restore Hadi to power.

Residents of the Al Mohssam village, in the northern Hajjah province, said two children and five men and women from the same family were killed in the overnight raid on their home.

A spokesman for the coalition was not immediately available for comment, but the alliance says it only targets Houthi militias and forces loyal to Saleh.

A spokesman for the Saudi civil service in the southern city of Najran said one citizen was killed and five wounded by projectiles fired from Yemen.

Saudi forces had earlier pounded the Houthis after fighters from the group attacked Jabal Tweileq, a hilltop on the Saudi side of the border.

The United Nations has said that more than 1,870 people have been killed and more than 7,000 wounded in the conflict since March 19.

South and central Yemen

In the southern city of Aden, residents and fighters said that Saudi-led planes conducted up to 18 sorties over Houthi forces in Khor Maksar and Crater, and that columns of smoke were seen rising over the areas hit.

The Saudi-led air force also provided cover for fighters allied with Hadi known as the Southern Popular Resistance (SPR) as they captured Al Anad junction, a strategic intersection north of Aden from the Houthis fighters, residents and local fighters said.

They said at least six Houthi fighters were killed in the clashes with SPR forces after the southern fighters received reinforcements from Radfan area in the southern Lahj province.

In the central Al Dhalea province, residents said they had had the first night without fighting after the city of Dhalea was recaptured by local SPR fighters the day before, regarded as the Houthis' first significant setback in two months.

But residents warned that the Houthis had summoned reinforcements from the Yarim area in Lahj province apparently to try to recapture Dhalea.

WASHINGTON — The Daesh group’s takeover of the Iraqi provincial capital Ramadi has prompted criticism from Defence Secretary Ash Carter and raised new questions about the Obama administration’s strategy to defeat the extremist group.

The Daesh group, which had already seized a strategically important swath of the Middle East, seized Ramadi in central Iraq a week ago, which has revived concerns about US efforts to fight the group.

The Obama administration’s approach in Iraq is a blend of retraining and rebuilding the Iraqi army, prodding the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad to reconcile with the nation’s Sunnis and bombing Daesh group targets from the air without committing American ground combat troops.

President Barack Obama’s strategy is predicated on Baghdad granting political concessions to the country’s alienated Sunnis, who are a source of personnel and money for the Daesh group. But there has been little visible progress on that front. Baghdad has continued to work closely with Shiite militias backed by Iran, which have been accused of atrocities against Sunnis, a religious minority in Iraq that ruled until Saddam Hussein fell from power.

The US has sought to reach out on its own to Sunni tribes and is training some Sunni fighters, but those efforts have been limited by the small number of American troops on the ground.

Carter said in an interview aired Sunday that Shiite-led Iraqi forces did not show a “will to fight” in the battle for Ramadi, a Sunni city.

Although Iraqi soldiers “vastly outnumbered” their opposition in the capital of Anbar province, they quickly withdrew a week ago without putting up much resistance from the city in Iraq’s Sunni heartland, Carter said on CNN’s “State of the Union”.

The Iraqis left behind large numbers of US-supplied vehicles, including several tanks, now presumed to be in Daesh hands.

“What apparently happened is the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight,” Carter said. “They were not outnumbered; in fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force. That says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves.”

The White House declined to comment on Sunday.

A spokesman for the Iraqi government said Monday that Carter’s remarks were surprising and that the US defence chief had been given “incorrect information”. In a statement, Saad Al Hadithi said the fall of Ramadi was due to mismanagement and poor planning by some senior military commanders in charge of Ramadi.

Iraqi lawmaker Hakim Al Zamili, the head of the parliamentary defence and security committee, called Carter’s comments “unrealistic and baseless”, in an interview with The Associated Press.

“The Iraqi army and police did have the will to fight IS group in Ramadi, but these forces lack good equipment, weapons and aerial support,” said Al Zamili, a member of the political party headed by radical Shia cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, who is stridently anti-American.

American officials say they are sending anti-tank weapons to the Iraqi military. But they also noted that Iraqi forces were not routed from Ramadi — they left of their own accord, frightened in part by a powerful wave of Daesh group suicide truck bombs, some the size of the one that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City two decades ago, said a senior State Department official who spoke to reporters last week under ground rules he not be named.

A senior defence official said that the troops who fled Ramadi had not been trained by the US or its coalition partners. The official was not authorised to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Carter defended the use of US air strikes, but he said they are not a replacement for Iraqi ground forces willing to defend their country.

American intelligence officials have assessed for some time that Iraq is unlikely ever again to function as the multi-ethnic nation-state it once was, and that any future political arrangement would have to grant significant local autonomy to the three main groups — Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. But the Obama administration has continued to pursue a “one Iraq” policy, routing all assistance through Baghdad.

Over the past year defeated Iraq security forces have repeatedly left US-supplied military equipment on the battlefield, which the US has targeted in subsequent air strikes against Daesh forces. The Pentagon this past week estimated that when Iraqi troops abandoned Ramadi, they left behind a half-dozen tanks, a similar number of artillery pieces, a larger number of armoured personnel carriers and about 100 wheeled vehicles like Humvees.

TUNIS — A Tunisian soldier the authorities say had psychological problems seized a gun at a barracks on Monday and killed seven comrades before being shot dead himself.

The interior ministry said the rampage was not linked to "terrorism", but a defence ministry spokesman did not rule this out before an investigation reports on the incident.

Defence ministry spokesman Belhassen Oueslati said the corporal, whose name was not given, "had family and psychological problems".

Because of this, he had been "forbidden from carrying arms" and given "non-sensitive duties".

"He attacked one man with a knife and took his gun before shooting at his comrades who were saluting the flag," Oueslati said.

The incident "caused the deaths of seven soldiers and also of the shooter. Ten soldiers were wounded, and one is in a serious condition," he added.

Monday's shooting was at the Bouchoucha barracks in Tunis, not far from parliament and the Bardo National Museum where jihadist gunmen killed 21 foreign tourists and a policeman in March.

It triggered a security alert across the Bardo district, AFP correspondents reported.

One heard two volleys of gunfire from inside the barracks at around 8:45am (0745 GMT), before an ambulance emerged, its siren blaring.

The interior ministry's elite Counterterrorism Brigade deployed in force across the area.

High alert

Police with sniffer dogs also checked parked vehicles for fear of car bombs in the district, which also houses two police barracks.

"The incident which took place at the Bouchoucha barracks is not connected with a terrorist operation," interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui told AFP initially.

The defence ministry's Oueslati said the shooter had been killed.

"The armed forces took control of the situation after firing on the soldier," Oueslati told AFP.

"Investigations will show whether this was a terrorist act or not," Oueslati told reporters, adding that all theories would be examined.

Tunis has been on high alert ever since the March massacre at the National Bardo Museum, which dealt a heavy blow to the North African country’s tourism industry.

Tunisia has seen an upsurge in Islamist militancy since the Arab Spring revolt which toppled veteran strongman Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.

Since then, there has been a growing threat from armed jihadists, especially on the border with Algeria.

Some 70 members of the security forces, both police and soldiers, have been killed over the past four years, mostly in the rugged Mount Chaambi area.

Tunisia has also had to contend with the violence in Libya, its violence-ridden neighbour to the east where the Bardo attack killers underwent weapons training.

The porous desert border between the two countries has seen trafficking of all kinds, including in weapons, mushroom in recent years.

CAIRO — Hundreds of Libyan tribal leaders met in Cairo on Monday with Egyptian authorities hoping to enlist their help in preventing Islamist violence from spilling over their shared border.

Islamist militants have thrived in the chaos of Libya, a North African oil producer that now has two competing governments backed by armed factions that four years earlier joined in an uprising that toppled autocrat Muammar Qadhafi.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi sees the rise of Islamists in Libya as a major security threat and is trying to secure the cooperation of tribal leaders to tackle it.

Analysts say that Sisi would like Arab states to carry out a Yemen-type intervention in Libya to combat Daesh fighters and other radical factions that have taken advantage of the lawlessness to recruit and train in the vast desert country.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri inaugurated the tribal conference, which runs through Thursday, by highlighting the positive role the tribes could play in restoring stability to Libya.

Egypt had invited the tribal leaders to talks because they were the “backbone” of society and main guarantor of Libyan stability, security and territorial integrity, Shukri said.

“Egypt will not hesitate to support her brother Libyans until they achieve security and reconciliation among themselves,” he said.

But achieving consensus among the hundreds of tribal leaders on how to tackle Islamic extremism could be a long process.

Libya’s two governments depend on various tribes and militias to support their claims to power.

The country’s internationally recognised government, which Egypt backs, has operated out of eastern Libya since a rival armed faction called Libya Dawn seized the capital Tripoli in August and set up its own government.

BEIRUT — The Daesh group has executed at least 217 people, including civilians, in and around the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra in the last nine days, a monitor said Sunday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had documented the executions of 67 civilians, including children, and 150 members of regime forces by Daesh jihadists in different parts of Homs province since May 16.

"The observatory has confirmed that Daesh has executed 67 civilians, including 14 children and 12 women in Sukhnah, Al Amiriyah, the outskirts of the Officers' Housing and Palmyra," said the Britain-based group, referring to several areas in the east of Homs province.

"IS [Daesh] also executed more than 150 members of the army, National Defence Forces and Popular Committees [pro-regime militias] and others accused of being 'informers loyal to the regime'," the observatory added.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said whole families had been executed, including children along with their parents.

"Most of the deaths were in Palmyra, some of the executions were shootings, others were killed with knives and beheaded," he told AFP.

The toll from the observatory came hours after Syrian state media said Daesh had carried out a "massacre" in Palmyra, slaughtering some 400 civilians, mostly women and children.

The observatory said the executions came in the days after Daesh began a sweep into Homs from their stronghold in neighbouring Deir Ezzor province.

They captured the strategic town of Sukhnah on May 13, and took Palmyra some 24 hours later, prompting international concern about the fate of the city's famed ancient ruins.

Fighters entered the museum in the historic city and had placed guards at its doors, the country's antiquities director said on Saturday, though most of its treasures were removed and brought to Damascus before Daesh cemented its control.

The observatory said another 600 people had been taken prisoner by Daesh in their sweep through the area, among them regime forces and pro-government militants, but also civilians accused of ties to the regime.

Syria's government labels all those fighting to oust President Bashar Assad "terrorists”, and has pointed to the emergence of Daesh and other jihadist groups as evidence that opponents of the regime are extremists.