BEIRUT // ISIL has executed 12 captives in the ancient city of Palmyra by shooting and beheading them, activists said on Thursday, a day after the killings.
Four of the victims, teachers and state employees, were beheaded in the courtyard of the Palmyra museum, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition monitoring group.
The Observatory and the Palmyra Monitor activist network said the other victims – four opposition fighters and four pro-government troops – were first shot, then beheaded.
Some of those killings were carried out in the city’s 2nd century Roman amphitheatre, while others took place at a former Russian base.
ISIL militants recaptured Palmyra in December, nine months after they were expelled from the city in a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive.
News of Wednesday’s killings came as the United States said it was reviewing an invitation to attend upcoming talks on the Syrian conflict in the Kazakh capital, Astana, next week.
“We did get an invitation and it’s under review,” a state department official said, after Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted as saying the US had been invited.
The talks, arranged by Moscow, will include officials from Russia, Iran, Turkey and the United Nations and are set to begin on Monday. They are expected to last less than a week.
Russia, which supports Syrian president Bashar Al Assad, pushed for the Astana talks with help from Iran and Turkey.
Iran, which on Thursday it saw the talks as an opportunity to establish dialogue between the Syrian government and opposition, has opposed any US presence at the meeting.
With US secretary of state John Kerry – who led talks with Russia on several failed ceasefire attempts in Syria – stepping down on Thursday, a decision on whether to attend the talks will be up to the new Trump administration.
Tom Shannon, the under secretary of state for political affairs and a long-time career diplomat, will run the state department until Mr Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is confirmed by the Senate, Mr Trump’s spokesman, Sean Spicer, said on Thursday.
Mr Spicer also said deputy defence secretary Robert Work and Brett McGurk, the US envoy for countering ISIL, were among 50 government employees with senior jobs who had been asked to stay on by Mr Trump.
Also on Thursday, Syrian president Mr Al Assad said he hoped rebels attending the Astana talks will agree to lay down their arms in exchange for an amnesty deal.
“This is the only thing we can expect at this time,” he added, according to excerpts from an interview with Japanese television channel TBS which were released by his office on Thursday.
Mr Al Assad said the talks would “prioritise, as we see it, reaching a ceasefire”.
“At this time, we believe that the conference will take shape as talks between the government and terrorist groups in order to reach a ceasefire and allow these groups to join the reconciliation deals in Syria,” he added.
Damascus has reached a series of local agreements under which rebels – which it refers to as “terrorists” – evacuate areas in exchange for an end to bombardment or siege.
Such deals have been fiercely criticised by rebel groups as a deliberate strategy of displacement.
His comments came as rebel shells slammed into the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, killing two people as thousands of government supporters gathered in a main square nearby to celebrate last month’s capture of the city’s eastern neighbourhoods.
The shells struck a few kilometres from Saadallah Al Jabiri Square, where nationalist music was blaring from giant loudspeakers and people danced and chanted pro-government slogans.
The gathering dispersed shortly afterward, highlighting the fragile security in the city.
The Syrian government’s capture of eastern Aleppo on December 22 brought Syria’s largest city back to the full control of Mr Al Assad for the first time since July 2012.
During the pro-government demonstration, a woman led protesters in a pledge to preserve Syria and protect it against rebels and their foreign backers. The protesters raised Syrian flags alongside those of Russia and Hizbollah, both of which have provided key support for the government.
About an hour into the protest, a shell exploded in the distance, leading some of those gathered to hurry away. Minutes later another shell exploded in the distance, causing more to leave.
“We are here to celebrate the victory in Aleppo,” said housewife Faten Sawwas, as she left the square with her two daughters. “God willing the crisis is beginning to end and we will rebuild Syria.”
Rebels on the western outskirts of the city have been shelling it with rockets and mortar rounds despite a ceasefire that has been in place since December 30. Both sides have carried out attacks despite the truce, which excludes ISIL and Jabhat Fatah Al Sham, formerly Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.
* Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse