Beirut (AFP) - The Islamic State group has executed more than 3,000 people in Syria, including hundreds of civilians, in the year since it declared its self-described "caliphate," a monitor said on Sunday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group monitoring Syria's conflict, said it had documented 3,027 executions by IS since June 29, 2014.

Among those executed are 1,787 civilians, including 74 children, said the Observatory.

Members of Sunni Shaitat tribe account for around half of the civilians murdered.

IS killed 930 members of the clan in Deir Ezzor last year after they rose up against the extremist Sunni Muslim group.

The toll also includes recent mass killings by IS in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane, which the jihadist group re-entered briefly this week after being expelled in January.

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An image uploaded on June 14, 2014 on the jihadist website Welayat Salahuddin allegedly shows milita …

The monitor said it had counted at least 223 executions in the border town this week.

The Observatory also documented 216 IS executions of rival rebel factions and Kurdish fighters, as well as the executions of nearly 900 regime forces.

IS has also executed 143 of its own members it accused of crimes including spying, many of them captured as they were trying to desert the group, the Observatory said.

And at least 8,000 IS militants have been killed in battles and US-led air strikes, added the monitor.

IS emerged in Syria in 2013, growing from Al-Qaeda's one-time Iraq affiliate and initially seeking to merge with Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

When Al-Nusra refused the merger, the two groups become rivals, and IS went on to announce its "caliphate" in territory in Syria and Iraq last year, proclaiming its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi "Caliph Ibrahim".

Kiev (AFP) - Oleksandr had already lost his job for being gay in the rebel Ukrainian bastion of Donetsk when he was approached by two Russian speakers with rifles dangling on their hips.

"So what are you, a fag?" one of them asked as the 28-year-old was grabbing a pack of cigarettes at the local kiosk.

Lanky but athletic Oleksandr -- an avid cook who loves curling up with a book and is particularly partial to board games -- said the prejudiced gunmen's suspicions seemed to have been aroused by his expressive gestures and soft voice.

Oleksandr mumbled something vaguely without looking up and walked away.

"By the end, I was just afraid someone was going to hunt me down and shoot me outside my apartment building," he said.

The incident happened shortly after guerrillas preaching the socially conservative values espoused by Russian President Vladimir Putin seized parts of eastern Ukraine just over a year ago.

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A masked gay activist takes part in the first Gay Pride march in Kiev, under the eye of the riot pol …

Oleksandr has since joined a wave of people -- some openly homosexual and others far less so -- who have fled the warzone and tried to rebuild life with the help of friends in Kiev.

"The Donetsk people started gossipping and exposing each other," the once fast-rising sales manager recalls.

He lost his job after a seemingly innocuous remark about another man crept through the social media networks and eventually reached his boss.

Oleksandr recalls being told: "You're a good worker but I do not want gays on my staff."

- No hand-holding in public -

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Ukrainian women 35 –year-old Yulia (L) and 28-year-old Natalia (R), relaxing in the kitchen of a ref …

The stigma of being gay in Ukraine has long forced many to keep their personal lives to themselves.

And it makes efforts by relief agencies to count and find those in need of relocation an increasingly hopeless mission.

Kiev is a cosmopolitan city of 2.9 million in which a small gay community gathers in bars clustered under the towering cathedrals that have played such an important part in Eastern Europeans' culture for some 1,500 years.

Yet much of Ukraine's rural population remains profoundly religious and unaccustomed to open public displays of emotion between people of the same sex.

Such "propaganda of non-traditional sexual orientations" deemed as potentially influencing minors -- ranging from hand-holding to kissing on the streets -- has been criminalised and made punishable with a fine in Russia.

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Ukrainian man Andrei, 52, standing on the balcony of a refuge home in Kiev, after he fled the separa …

The measure echoes the Soviet Union's treatment of gays as miscreants who were either jailed or sent to remote psychiatric wards.

Ukraine's warlords have done little to hide their attachment to such an uncompromising approach to alternative lifestyles.

Separatist leader Denis Pushilin told reporters last year that he "never had, and never will, have gay friends".

The self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk is drafting a law banning rights groups of all types that receive foreign funding.

"The level of homophobia in the east is high. It is worse now than it was in the Soviet era," said gay rights activist Oleksandr Zinchenkov.

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Gay activists hold the first Gay Pride march in Kiev, since fighting with pro-Moscow rebels broke ou …

"Many gays and lesbians have simply fled."

- 'Hiding behind a mask' -

Yulia ended up in a four-room refuge built out of a dilapidated 1970s flat on the sleepy outskirts of Kiev.

The 29-year-old lesbian says it is the only such safe house in Kiev she knows of -- and one set up thanks solely to a Western donor who asked to remain nameless.

Volunteers deliver basic food items and passes for public transport. The anonymous foreign donor pays for any medical or psychological help required.

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Right-wing activists (R) clash with riot-police (L) during a protest against the first Gay Pride mar …

Yulia and her four flatmates feel safer -- but not entirely free.

"The friends I still have left (in Donetsk) have all gone into hiding," she says with a degree of resignation in her voice.

The turmoils of war have also fed the passions of some ultranationalist forces that not only volunteer to fight the pro-Russian militias, but also take a grim view of homosexuals and those outside the Catholic faith.

A small Gay Pride parade staged in Kiev earlier this month ended in almost immediate clashes between police and neo-Nazi thugs.

Neither Yulia nor her flatmate attended that event.

"I sensed the public's mood in advance," says Yulia's flatmate Andrei.

The 52-year-old managed to get out of Donetsk during a brief lull in fighting at the start of the year. But he refuses to disclose his new address in public -- a safety precaution shared by all five.

"I feel like I am always hiding behind a mask," Andrei confesses.

BEIJING (AP) — Global stock markets sank Monday after Greece closed its banks and imposed capital controls in a dramatic turn in its struggle with heavy debts.

Oil prices declined and the euro edged down after Athens announced the moves to stanch the flow of money out of Greek banks and pressure creditors to offer concessions before a bailout program expires Tuesday.

Germany's DAX index tumbled 2.9 percent to 11,161.41 points in early trading and France's CAC-40 dived 3.4 percent to 4,887.69. Britain's FTSE 100 dropped 1.6 percent to 6,643.83. Futures augured losses on Wall Street. Dow futures were down 1.1 percent at 17,677.00. S&P 500 futures shed 1.1 percent to 2,073.00.

Greece's Cabinet closed banks for six business days and restricted cash withdrawals. The Athens Stock Exchange was due to be closed Monday. That follows Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' weekend decision to call a referendum on European and International Monetary Fund proposals for Greek reforms in return for bailout funds.

The accelerating crisis has raised questions about whether Greece might withdraw from the 19-nation euro currency, a move dubbed Grexit.

"Even if a deal is somehow reached, the ability of Greece to implement agreed reforms is doubtful," said IHS Global Insight economist Rajiv Biswas in a report.

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A man looks at an electronic stock indicator of a securities firm in Tokyo, Monday, June 29, 2015. T …

Greek withdrawal from the euro could lower Asian economic growth by 0.3 percentage points next year due to disruption in trade and financial markets, Biswas said.

In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index fell 3.3 percent to 4,053.03 despite China's surprise weekend interest rate cut. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 shed 2.9 percent to 20,109.95.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 2.6 percent to 25,966.98 and Sydney's S&P/ASX 200 was off 2.2 percent at 5,422.50. Seoul's Kospi dropped 1.4 percent to 2,060.49 and India's Sensex declined 1.5 percent to 27,385.05.

The euro slipped to $1.1066 from the previous session's $1.1168. The dollar declined to 122.96 yen from 123.89 yen.

Globally, Greece's brinksmanship with its creditors is unlikely to have the impact of the financial panic set off by the collapse of Lehman Bros. in September 2008, economists said.

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People look at an electronic stock indicator of a securities firm in Tokyo, Monday, June 29, 2015. T …

"Today, the European banks have shed much of their Greek debt and they have significantly increased their capital," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.

"A Greek default and exit from the euro zone would be devastating to Greece's economy, but no one else's," said Zandi. "So, the Greek standoff will be disconcerting to financial markets, but only temporarily."

The European Central Bank has vowed to do whatever it takes to prevent a financial panic.

The ECB is committed to buying 60 billion euros a month in bonds to push down interest rates and help economies that use the euro. It could buy more and flood financial markets with cash to calm jittery investors.

"They stand ready to do whatever it takes," said Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

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A TV cameraman films an electronic stock indicator of a securities firm in Tokyo, Monday, June 29, 2 …

China's rate cut, the fourth since November, appeared to be aimed at reassuring investors after a plunge in share prices last week, rather than boosting economic growth, analysts said.

Beijing cut its benchmark lending rate by 0.25 percentage point and freed up money for lending by lowering the reserves banks are required to hold.

The timing is "rather market-friendly" and appears to be meant to "provide a support to the market sentiment," said Credit Suisse economists Dong Tao and Weishen Deng in a report.

In energy markets, U.S. benchmark crude declined $1.11 to $58.52 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract shed 7 cents in the previous session to close at $59.63. Brent crude, used to price international oils, shed $1.24 cents to $62.02 in London.

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Wiseman reported from Washington, D.C.

VIENNA (AP) — A senior U.S. official acknowledged Sunday that Iran nuclear talks will go past their June 30 target date, as Iran's foreign minister prepared to head home for consultations before returning to push for a breakthrough.

Iranian media said Mohammed Javad Zarif's trip was planned in advance. Still, the fact that he was leaving the talks so close to what had been the Tuesday deadline reflected both that the talks had a ways to go and his need to get instructions on how to proceed on issues where the sides remain apart — among them how much access Tehran should give to U.N. experts monitoring his country's compliance to any deal.

The United States insists on more intrusive monitoring than Iran is ready to give. With these and other disputes still unresolved, the likelihood that the Tuesday target deadline for an Iran nuclear deal could slip was increasingly growing even before the U.S. confirmation.

The dispute over access surfaced again Sunday, with Iranian Gen. Masoud Jazayeri saying that any inspection by foreigners of Iran's military centers is prohibited.

He said the attempt by the U.S. and its allies to "obtain Iran's military information for years ... by the pressure of sanctions" will not succeed.

But German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who joined the talks Friday, said Iran's "nuclear activities, no matter where they take place," must be verifiable.

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From left, U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Under …

Officials said they could not speculate on how many days' extension the talks would need. But Zarif told reporters that he planned to come back only on Tuesday, the day the negotiations were originally supposed to end with a deal.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Zarif met in Vienna for their third encounter since Saturday. The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany came — and then went, or planned to leave, in another reflection that the sides were not yet close to a deal.

For weeks, all seven nations at the negotiating table insisted that Tuesday remains the formal deadline for a deal. But with time running out, a senior U.S. official acknowledged that was unrealistic.

"Given the dates, and that we have some work to do ... the parties are planning to remain in Vienna beyond June 30 to continue working," said the official, who demanded anonymity in line with State Department practice.

Asked about the chances for a deal, Federica Mogherini, the European Union's top diplomat, told reporters: "It's going to be tough ... but not impossible." Hammond spoke of "major differences" in the way of a deal.

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From left, U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Under …

Steinmeier told German media: "I am convinced that if there is no agreement, everyone loses."

"Iran would remain isolated. A new arms race in a region that is already riven by conflict could be the dramatic consequence."

Both sides recognize that there is leeway to extend to July 9. As part of an agreement with the U.S. Congress, lawmakers then have 30 days to review the deal before suspending congressional sanctions.

But postponement beyond that would double the congressional review period to 60 days, giving both Iranian and U.S. critics more time to work on undermining an agreement.

Arguing for more time to allow the U.S. to drive a harder bargain, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a fierce opponent of the talks — weighed in on Sunday against "this bad agreement, which is becoming worse by the day."

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, talks to reporters alongside U.S. Under Secretary for Poli …

"It is still not too late to go back and insist on demands that will genuinely deny Iran the ability to arm itself with nuclear weapons," he said.

The goal of the talks involving Iran and the U.S., Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia is a deal that would crimp Tehran's capacity to make nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief. Iran insists it does not want such arms but is bargaining in exchange for sanctions relief.

On Saturday, diplomats told The Associated Press that Iran was considering a U.S.-backed plan for it to send enriched uranium to another country for sale as reactor fuel, a step that would resolve one of several outstanding issues.

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Associated Press writers Bradley Klapper and Matthew Lee in Vienna, Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Islamabad (AFP) - Pakistan's army is preparing for a final push in the coming weeks in its fight against militants, but there are concerns that rights are being rolled back in the name of defeating terror.

A year on from the launch of a major offensive to eradicate strongholds of Taliban and other militants in North Waziristan tribal area, the military says the job is 90 percent done.

It is now positioning troops around the Shawal Valley, a key location close to the Afghan border that is home to some of the last redoubts of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), according to locals and security sources.

The army says it has killed more than 2,700 militants since the launch of the offensive -- dubbed Zarb-e-Azb -- last June, and destroyed more than 800 of their hideouts.

A senior military official directly linked to the offensive said the army was gearing up for the final push and using air strikes before moving in ground troops.

"We are turning hard targets into soft through aerial bombing because forces expect a resistance in Shawal," he told AFP.

The troop movements were confirmed by locals, though some tribal elders warned militants were slipping across the porous mountainous border into Afghanistan.

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Pakistan solders patrol near a refugee camp of internally displaced Pakistani civilians, fleeing a m …

"Up to two dozen militants are leaving the area every day and around 200 militants recently moved into part of Afghan territory," elder Ajab Khan told AFP.

He warned the remaining areas where TTP fighters are holed up will be difficult fighting terrain -- mountainous and thickly forested.

- Reform, development needed -

But security analysts caution that military gains will serve little purpose unless and until the lawless, semi-autonomous tribal areas see administrative reform and economic development.

The Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are among the poorest in Pakistan, and are governed under a draconian legal system introduced by British colonial rulers more than a century ago.

"The longevity of the 'final push' would largely depend on the constitutional status of the region," said Imtiaz Gul, executive director at Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS).

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Pakistani soldiers take position as they search a house during a military operation against Taliban …

"Until the FATA region is mainstreamed and brought under the law of the land, keeping it clear of militants and criminals would be difficult."

Hundreds of thousands of civilians were forced to leave North Waziristan by the offensive. Retired Lieutenant General Talat Masood said reintegrating them was key to success.

"These military gains will only be a part of the exercise. Complete success depends on the rehabilitation of the displaced people and development in the tribal region," he told AFP.

Zarb-e-Azb does seem to have had a positive impact on militant attacks, which have been down overall, with some shocking exceptions, such as the December massacre by Taliban gunmen of more than 130 children at a school in Peshawar.

- Doubts, concerns -

But doubts have been raised about the transparency of the operation and the identities of those killed.

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Pakistani police try to identify the bodies of killed Taliban militants at a morgue in Karachi, on O …

There have been repeated reports of civilian deaths, but the military tightly controls access to the conflict zone, preventing independent assessment.

I. A. Rehman of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said there was no way to know for sure who the army had killed.

"We don't know the truth about the casualties -- what is the actual number of casualties, how many of them are terrorists and how many of them innocents?" he told AFP.

"They should make this action transparent. People should have access in the areas of operation."

Concerns have also been raised about the resumption of executions and introduction of military courts, which have sat in secret, under a government National Action Plan (NAP) to defeat terror, launched in the wake of the Peshawar massacre.

The European Union, the United Nations and various international rights groups have been alarmed by the pace of executions -- around 160 since they began again in December after a six-year hiatus.

Rehman said HRCP did not accept the legitimacy of the military courts, which handed out their first rulings in April, sentencing six militants to death and another to life in jail.

The news was announced in a Twitter post by the chief military spokesman Major General Asim Bajwa, with no details given on the nature of the crimes, when or where the trials were held, the evidence presented or even the identity of those convicted.

The Supreme Court is currently hearing challenges to the constitutionality of the military tribunals.

Moreover there are doubts the NAP will do much to deal with the radicalisation of young people by hardline seminaries that underlies much of Pakistan's terror problems.

"They have resumed hangings through the National Action Plan but the seminaries are still working and there is no check on them," Rehman said.