IS kills 37 rivals in Syria and another 300 in Iraq

Islamic State fighters killed at least 37 rival insurgents in an overnight attack in Syria’s Aleppo province and 20 fighters remain missing, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday.

Islamic State fighters killed at least 37 rival insurgents in an overnight attack in Syria’s Aleppo province and 20 fighters remain missing, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday.

Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Observatory, said that late on Saturday a suicide bomber from the extremist group blew himself up in a military post held by a group of rival insurgents in the Umm Housh village in northern Aleppo countryside.

Islamic State fighters then seized the village after heavy clashes with rival groups.

“The main goal for taking the village is to tighten the noose around Marea which is considered a reservoir for groups that are against the Islamic State,” Abdulrahman said.

Jihadi groups and Islamist and mainstream groups have been engaged in internecine fighting for more than two years, complicating the four-year conflict in Syria.

A firing squad of the Islamic State has executed at least 300 Iraqi civil servants, including some 50 women, who worked for the election commission, a media report said.

The mass killings on Saturday took place at a military camp in the Iraqi city Mosul.

A military official said at least 50 of those shot dead were women.