Syria: ISIL militants kill 102-year-old Alawite man and his family

Radical Islamists shot the victim dead in his sleep, and also killed his son, grandson, great-granddaughter and her mother, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

BEIRUT // The most radical Islamist group fighting in Syria on Sunday killed a 102-year-old man along with his whole family in the heart of the country, a monitoring group said.

Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) shot the man dead in his sleep, and also killed his son, grandson, great-granddaughter and her mother, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

All the victims were Alawites, members of the same offshoot of Shiite Islam as Syria’s president, Bashar Al Assad.

Rooted in Al Qaeda in Iraq, ISIL was initially welcomed by rebels seeking Mr Al Assad’s overthrow, but their systematic abuses and quest for hegemony turned the rest of the opposition against them.

ISIL killed the family while attacking Zanuba village in Hama, the Observatory said.

“Some members of the family were burned alive, others killed in their sleep,” it added.

Elsewhere, the air force launched fresh strikes against rebel areas of Aleppo, dropping more, highly destructive barrel bombs, said the Observatory.

Several people were injured in Sunday’s attack, and a house was burnt down.

The regime’s air offensive on Aleppo’s rebel areas has killed nearly 2,000 people this year, and caused thousands of families to flee the city.

Rights groups have blasted the regime’s use of barrel bombs as indiscriminate and unlawful.

Rebels meanwhile launched fresh mortar attacks on regime-held areas of divided Aleppo, killing at least four people, including a child.

More than 162,000 people have been killed in Syria’s war, and nearly half the population forced to flee their homes.

* Agence France-Presse