IS executes scores of Syrian troops in new atrocity

Damascus (AFP) - Islamic State jihadists boasted Thursday they had executed scores of Syrian troops after capturing a key air base, the latest in a string of abuses that have shocked the world.

News of the killings came as US President Barack Obama weighed air strikes on IS positions in Syria and edged closer to greenlighting a mission to aid Shiite Turkmen trapped in an Iraqi town besieged by the jihadists.

It also came as rival Islamist rebels led by Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front seized 43 UN peacekeepers on the Golan Heights, part of a mission that has monitored an armistice between Syrian and Israeli troops on the strategic plateau for decades.

IS posted grisly video footage on the Internet of scores of bodies heaped in the desert they boasted were those of Syrian soldiers they captured and executed following its seizure of Tabqa air base.

The jihadists have repeatedly posted gruesome videos, which have appalled international opinion but served as a propaganda tool to recruit volunteers.

Britain-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that IS had executed at least 160 soldiers, among some 500 who had made a desperate bid to escape to government-held territory after their defeat last Sunday.

The footage posted by IS showed a close-up of some 20 bodies, but then panned out to show scores more.

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Image made available by Jihadist media outlet Welayat Raqa on July 25, 2014, claims to show members …

Other shots showed men barefoot and dressed only in their underwear walking in line with their hands on their head in surrender, escorted by jihadist gunmen.

One held up the black flag of the jihadists. Others chanted: "Islamic State forever."

Tabqa was the last position in Raqa province to fall to the jihadists, who now control a vast swathe of northeastern Syria and Iraq.

A UN-mandated probe has charged that public executions, amputations, lashings and mock crucifixions have become a regular fixture in jihadist-controlled areas of Syria.

Obama was to meet with top national security aides at 2000 GMT to decide whether to expand US air strikes launched against IS in Iraq earlier this month to its strongholds in Syria.

The Syrian government launched air strikes of its own on Thursday, killing six IS leaders, the Observatory said, but Washington has so far baulked at cooperating with Damascus against the group.

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Image made available by the jihadist Twitter account Al-Baraka news on June 11, 2014 claims to shows …

- UN peacekeepers held -

Rival jihadists of Al-Nusra Front, backed by other rebels, detained 43 Fijian peacekeepers on the Golan on Thursday, a day after their capture of the sole crossing over the UN-patrolled armistice line to the Israeli-occupied sector of the plateau.

"Forty-three peacekeepers from the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force were detained early this morning by an armed group in the vicinity of Quneitra," a UN statement said.

The 43 peacekeepers from Fiji were forced to surrender their weapons and taken hostage, but 81 Filipino blue helmets "held their ground" and refused to disarm, the Filipino defence department said.

It said the Filipino peacekeepers were being surrounded by the gunmen.

The UN Security Council condemned the action and demanded the "unconditional and immediate release" of the peacekeepers, a statement said.

Peacekeepers were detained twice last year and released safely.

But the Philippines has said it will repatriate its 331-strong contingent, for security reasons, mirroring previous moves by Australia, Croatia and Japan.

Washington has also been weighing both aid drops and air strikes in Iraq to help residents of a Shiite Turkmen town besieged by the jihadists since early June, US officials said on Wednesday.

Inhabitants of the Salaheddin province town of Amerli, north of Baghdad, face danger both because of their faith, which jihadists consider heresy, and their resistance against the militants,

"It could be a humanitarian operation. It could be a military operation. It could be both," said a US defence official on condition of anonymity.

Iraq is preparing its own effort, massing forces north and south of the town and carrying out air strikes against the jihadist militants besieging it.

There is "no possibility of evacuating them so far", Eliana Nabaa, spokeswoman for the UN mission in Iraq, said of Amerli residents.

UN Iraq envoy Nickolay Mladenov has called for an urgent effort to help Amerli, saying residents face a "possible massacre" if the town is overrun.

Militants execute more than 160 Syrian troops

Overtaking a garrison of Assad forces, ISIL jihadists add to their growing list of atrocities committed.

'There's no going back'

By Matt Spetalnick and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American forces face formidable challenges as President Barack Obama considers an air assault on Islamist fighters in Syria, including intelligence gaps on potential targets, concerns about Syria’s air defenses and fears that the militants may have anti-aircraft weapons, current and former U.S. officials say.

The Pentagon began preparing options for an assault on Islamic State fighters after the militants last week posted a gruesome video showing the beheading of American photojournalist James Foley. Deliberations by Obama’s national security team on expanding the campaign against Islamic State from Iraq into neighboring Syria gathered pace in recent days, officials say.

While it is unclear how soon strikes might be launched, Obama’s go-ahead for aerial reconnaissance over Syria has raised expectations he will approve the attacks rather than back off as he did last year after threatening to strike Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Any air offensive would likely focus on Islamic State’s leadership and positions around the city of Raqqa in their stronghold of eastern Syria, and border areas that have served as staging grounds for Islamist forces that have swept into Iraq and taken over a third of the country.

But every option carries significant risk.

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This undated image posted by the Raqqa Media Center, a Syrian opposition group, on Monday, June 30, …

"There are all kinds of downsides and risks that suggest air strikes in Syria are probably not a great idea," said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East adviser under both Republican and Democratic administrations. "But that doesn’t mean they won’t happen anyway."

Efforts to hit the right targets in Syria will be more difficult than in Iraq, hindered by a shortage of reliable on-the-ground intelligence, in contrast to northern Iraq where Iraqi and Kurdish forces provided intelligence.

U.S.-backed moderate rebels who could provide intelligence in Syria have yet to coalesce into a potent fighting force. It is unclear, for instance, if they can provide forward spotters needed to help guide any air strikes in territory held by Islamic State.

RUSSIAN-BUILT AIR DEFENSES

Syria’s Russian-built air defense system is another concern. It remains largely intact more than three years into the country’s civil war.

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Picture taken on August 10, 2014 shows an oil field in Sheikhan, northeast of the city of Mosul in n …

Assad may opt not to use it, mindful that he could benefit from a U.S. assault on Islamic State. He has struggled to fend off advances by the radical offshoot of al Qaeda, which has taken three Syrian military bases in northeast Syria in recent weeks, boosted by arms seized in Iraq.

He could also face U.S. retaliation for any Syrian government interference in a U.S. air campaign.

Of greater concern to Western military planners is anti-aircraft weaponry Islamic State fighters might have acquired.

"Flying aircraft over Syria is very different than in Iraq," said Eric Thompson, senior strategic studies analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, which advises the U.S. military as part of the CNA Corp think tank in Virginia. "There are more sophisticated air defenses, some in the hands of ISIS,” he added, using an alternative name for Islamic State.

In a recent report, Small Arms Survey, an independent research group based in Geneva, detailed a range of shoulder-launched missile systems in the hands of the militants. Known as MANPAD, or man-portable air defense systems, some were apparently stolen from government stockpiles while others were supplied from outside sources in other countries.

INTELLIGENCE GAPS

The Pentagon has publicly conceded it has less-than-perfect information about the movements and capabilities of Islamic State fighters, a limitation reflected in a failed attempt by U.S. special forces to rescue Foley in July.

Intelligence gaps raise the risk of civilian casualties from any U.S. air strikes in Syria, especially given that the militants are highly mobile and intermingle with the civilian population in urban areas like Raqqa.

From unmanned armed drones to powerful Stealth bombers, a wide range of U.S. airpower is at Obama’s disposal, including possible missiles fired from warships at sea or from aircraft flying outside Syria’s borders.

Drones, Obama’s weapon of choice in the fight against al Qaeda in Pakistan and Yemen, could also be used, but possibly more for surveillance than missile strikes. Given the risk of missed targets and civilian casualties, U.S. forces typically prefer to operate drones in tandem with intelligence operatives on the ground.

Islamic State leaders' use of encryption in communications is highly sophisticated and hinders efforts to track them, according to U.S. officials familiar with the group’s tactics. As a result, Islamic State leaders such as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi are expected to be hard to find.

(Additonal reporting by Mark Hosenball and Peter Apps. Editing by Jason Szep and Peter Henderson)

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Kirkuk (Iraq) (AFP) - Retreating jihadists set three wells ablaze at a northern Iraq oil field Thursday as they battled Kurdish forces who launched a major attack nearby, officials said.

The Islamic State (IS) jihadists set the wells on fire before deserting the Ain Zalah field, which was seized by militants along in early August, an official from the North Oil Company said.

A colonel in the Kurdish peshmerga forces said they had launched a major attack that has seen the jihadists pushed back from several villages in the area of the oil field.

The officer and Nineveh provincial council chief Bashar al-Kiki both said that Kurdish forces had also taken control of Batana mountain, near Zumar.

Kiki said the strategic position would help the peshmerga retake the Zumar area from jihadists, and that the Kurdish forces are supported by US air strikes.

IS-led militants launched a sweeping offensive in June that overran large areas of Iraq, and turned their sights on Kurdish forces in the north earlier this month, driving them back toward Arbil, the capital of their three-province autonomous region.

That advance, during which the militants targeted minority groups and forced some 200,000 people to flee, sparked a campaign of US air strikes which, combined with international shipments of arms and ammunition, have helped the Kurds claw back some ground.

The militants reportedly rake in significant volumes of cash from the sale of oil from fields they control.

They have made repeated attempts to seize the Baiji oil refinery, which once filled some 50 percent of Iraq's demand for refined petroleum products, but have each time been driven back.

The militant offensive has wreaked havoc on northern production and exports, but Iraq's main southern fields and export terminals have not been affected by the violence.