Syria: Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) rebels expelled from Aleppo
Videos posted online and reports from activists in the city said the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) fled, leaving behind hundreds of prisoners, including some who had been killed as they left.
Yusuf, a “citizen journalist” in the city, told The Daily Telegraph that 300 activists, journalists and members of other rebel groups had been freed from a makeshift jail in a former children’s hospital. Some recorded harrowing accounts of their treatment in videos posted online.
“The deputy head of the Grandsons of the Prophet Brigade was imprisoned with us,” said one man. “He was tortured for five days. They were asking him, ‘Did you become an infidel?’ He answered no, until finally under torture and humiliation he said to them, ‘Yes, I became an infidel,’ and then they killed him.”
A broad alliance of other factions, from secular brigades originally part of the western-backed Free Syrian Army to hardline but non-al-Qaeda Islamist groups, joined together in what has every appearance of being a pre-planned sweep against ISIS a week ago.