Nation In Brief: As warning, IS publicly kills Syrian troops

Beirut – Islamic State group militants hunted down Syrian government troops and loyalists in the newly captured town of Palmyra, shooting or beheading them in public as a warning, and imposing their strict interpretation of Islam, activists said Friday.

The purge, which relied mostly on informants, was aimed at solidifying the extremists’ grip on the strategic town that was overrun Wednesday by IS fighters.

It also was part of a campaign to win the support of President Bashar Assad’s opponents, who have suffered from a government crackdown in the town and surrounding province in the last four years of Syria’s civil war.

The strategy included promises to fix the electricity and water grids – after Palmyra is cleared of regime loyalists, according to an activist in the historic town.

Man convicted in Levy killing to get new trial

Washington – A man convicted of killing Washington intern Chandra Levy is expected to get a new trial after government attorneys on Friday said the “interests of justice” would best be served by one.

On Friday, after more than a year of sporadic hearings and legal wrangling, government attorneys withdrew their opposition to a new trial for Ingmar Guandique. In a four-page motion, they told a judge they were preparing to retry him.

Guandique’s attorneys had previously asked a judge to grant him a new trial because they said a key witness in the case, Guandique’s one-time cellmate, gave false or misleading testimony during his 2010 trial. Guandique’s attorneys said prosecutors knew or should have known the testimony was problematic and investigated further.

Levy’s 2001 disappearance created a national sensation after the 24-year-old Modesto, California, native was romantically linked with then-Rep. Gary Condit, a California Democrat who was ultimately ruled out as a suspect. Her remains were found in Washington’s Rock Creek Park in 2002.