In the mid-afternoon, as rebels were searching cars at the city’s northeastern checkpoint and the fighting continued, they dragged a man from a vehicle, rushed him to far shoulder of the road and shot him.

The man’s detention, and his hasty burial, could be viewed by binoculars from a few hundred yards away, though the execution was not visible because the crowd around the man at that moment was too thick.

Journalists from The New York Times who attempted to interview the executioners were chased away by gunfire, apparently coincidental, that swept over the checkpoint and its environs. The bullets scattered the gathered crowd.