ISIS executes 33, its largest mass killing of 2017

4 June 2017: the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) executed 33 people in eastern Syria on Wednesday, according to a monitoring group, in its biggest mass killing in 2017.
In a morning execution in the eastern Syrian countryside, the group killed dozens between the ages of 18 and 25 years old, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which has an extensive network of sources on the ground in Syria. The execution, which SOHR said was the “largest…mass execution” carried out by ISIS this year, took place in a desert area of al-Mayadin around 8 kilometers southeast of Deir Ezzor city, still controlled by ISIS. SOHR said that its activists were “able to monitor the execution” and “see the bodies.” The jihadi group carried out the execution with “sharp tools,” before burying its victims in a hole that the group had already created in the ground. ISIS continues to produce gruesome propaganda videos showing the beheadings of alleged spies, enemy forces and prisoners it has captured. It is a form of punishment intended to spread fear among the civilian populations under its control.