Jihadists kill 270 in Syrian gas field \\\'massacre\\\'

BEIRUT, July 19 (AFP): Jihadists have killed 270 Syrian regime fighters, civilian security guards and employees since seizing a gas field in Homs province, a monitoring group said Saturday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described Thursday's takeover of the Shaar field as "the biggest" anti-regime operation by the Islamic State (IS) since it emerged in Syria's conflict last year.
The watchdog said it had documented "the death of 270 people killed in the fighting or executed" since the takeover of the field in central Syria.
"A large majority of the men killed were executed at gunpoint after being taken prisoner following the takeover of the camp," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
"Eleven of the dead were civilian employees, while the rest were security guards and National Defence Forces members," he added.
On Saturday, regime forces, a day after launching a counter-attack, had "re-taken large areas of Shaar", according to Abdel Rahman. "Fighting is continuing around the gas field".
The counter-attack had left at least 40 IS militants dead, while 11 soldiers had been killed and 10 others who were injured had been taken to hospital in Homs.
The fate of nearly 100 people who worked at the site remained unknown, according to earlier figures released by the Observatory.
The Syrian government did not officially confirm the deaths, but supporters of President Bashar al-Assad's regime posted photographs of the dead.
One pro-regime Twitter user said: "Thirty martyrs were brought to Homs hospital from the Shaar gas field... Homs is still bleeding."
He also branded the killings as a "massacre", and posted pictures of the dead.
Gruesome footage apparently recorded by the jihadists at the gas field and distributed via YouTube showed dozens of bodies, some of them mutilated, strewn across a desert landscape.