ISIS massacres 128 before fleeing town it held for 20 days

ISIS fanatics have executed at least 128 civilians in a Syrian town within a matter of days, it has emerged.

Dozens of the victims were shot or knifed to death before being dumped in a pit in Qaryatayn, in Syria’s central Homs province.

The massacre happened over a period of just 20 days with the majority killed 48 hours before the terror group was forced out of the desert town by Syrian troops.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which monitors ISIS activity in the country, said prisoners had been accused of collaborating with the Syrian regime.

The Observatory says most of the dead were killed during the militant group’s three-week seizure of the town which started on October 1. 

Victims included two women and a doctor.

‘After the regime retook it (on Saturday), the town’s residents found the bodies on the streets. They had been shot dead or executed with knives,’ said the SOHR’s Abdel Rahman.

ISIS has suffered major setbacks in recent months and was recently driven out of Raqqa (pictured), the capital of its self-proclaimed caliphate 

‘Most of the ISIS fighters who attacked the town a month ago were sleeper cells… They are from the town, know the town’s residents and who is for or against the regime,’ he said.

The majority of those killed were executed in the last two days before ISIS lost the town again, he added.

Syrian troops and allied fighters regained control of the town on Saturday.

The activist-run Palmyra Coordination Committee has published the names of the killed. 

It says at least 35 of the victims were found shot and their bodies dumped in a shaft.

ISIS has suffered major setbacks in recent months and was recently driven out of Raqqa, the capital of its self-proclaimed caliphate.