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by Our Foreign Desk
ISLAMIC State (Isis) militants searched through the Syrian town of Palmyra for government supporters yesterday, using informers and lists of names to track them down and kill them on the spot.
Activists estimated that at least 150 have died since the extremist group overran the town late on Wednesday.
Isis has imposed a curfew from 5pm until sunrise and banned people from leaving town until this morning to ensure that none of the government figures they seek is able to escape.
The door-to-door hunt for opponents is similar to the purge carried out in the Iraqi city of Ramadi last week.
Isis fighters used loudspeakers to warn residents against sheltering troops, leading many to come forward to give information about forces that had melted into the civilian population.
“The search is going from house to house, shop to shop, and people on the streets have to show identity cards,” said Palmyra activist Osama al-Khatib, who is currently in Turkey and who contacted his friends and relatives yesterday morning before communications were cut off.
Governor Talal Barazi of the central province of Homs, which includes Palmyra, said that Isis forces had abducted men and “might have committed massacres.”
Local activists say that Isis has also captured the phosphate mines at Khunayfis, near Palmyra.
Another town fell to Isis in neighbouring Iraq’s western province of Anbar, according to tribal leader Sheikh Rafie al-Fahdawi.
He said that the small town of Husseiba had been captured overnight when police and tribal fighters withdrew after running out of ammunition.
Husseiba is about four miles east of Ramadi, where Isis militants routed Iraqi government forces last weekend in their most significant advance in nearly a year.
Isis captured the Iraqi side of a key border crossing with Syria on Thursday after Iraqi government forces pulled out, making it easier for the militants to shuttle weaponry and reinforcements across the frontier.
The Pentagon announced on Thursday that a shipment of 2,000 lightweight shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons intended to help the Iraqi army nullify the increasingly effective use of car bombs by Isis should arrive in Iraq next week.
