ISIL attacks protesters in Syria town

Takfiri terrorists have opened fire on hundreds of people protesting against occupation of the Syrian town of Ashara in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the terrorists also arrested several young men and then executed a youth identified as Ali Khalaf.

“Thursday evening’s protest (in Ashara) began as a funeral for the victims, attended by nearly 300 people,” local activist Rayan al-Furati said on Friday.

“Then the mourners began to protest, demanding that the ISIL leave the town of Ashara,” Furati added.

The observatory says ISIL publicly executed and crucified Khalaf, accusing him of “heresy and apostasy.”

“Though he had nothing to do with yesterday’s protests, they executed him publicly in Ashara in order to terrorize people into not taking any kind of action against the ISIL,” said the observatory director Abdel Rahman.

Furati noted that the Takfiri militants are vastly unpopular in the region, but people are deeply fearful of taking action against them.

“It’s like living in a prison,” Furati said, adding, “Not a single day passes without an execution somewhere in Deir ez-Zor province.”

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011 with ISIL Takfiri terrorists currently controlling parts of the country, mostly in the east.

ISIL terrorists have been behind many of the deadly bomb attacks targeting both civilians and government institutions across Syria over the past three years.

More than 190,000 people have been killed in over three years of foreign-backed militancy in Syria, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

The figure is a probable “underestimate of the real total number of people killed,” the OHCHR says.