The dying toll from an assault blamed on the Islamic State group in Syria has risen to 68, a warfare monitor mentioned Saturday, the deadliest assault in over a yr.
“A total of 61 civilians and seven soldiers have been killed in the attack,” mentioned Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britain-based Observatory, which has a large community of sources inside Syria, mentioned the assault had been carried out on Friday by jihadists on bikes who opened hearth on truffle hunters.
The monitor mentioned that IS was profiting from the annual harvest of the desert fungus delicacy, which usually runs from February to April, to hold out assaults in distant places.
The assault takes the full quantity murdered in suspected IS assaults within the Syrian desert to 90 since February 10, with a string of different killings in current days, the monitor mentioned.
IS group didn’t instantly declare the assault on its normal channels.
Syrian state media had reported 53 deaths Friday, after the assault southwest of the city of Al-Sokhna, within the desert east of Homs.
It was the deadliest assault by IS since January final yr, after they stormed a jail within the Kurdish-controlled northeastern metropolis of Hasakeh in a bid to free fellow jihadists.
The ensuing preventing inside the town killed 105 folks, principally civilians, in addition to 268 jihadists.
After the jihadists misplaced their final scraps of territory following a army onslaught backed by a US-led coalition in March 2019, IS remnants in Syria principally retreated to hideouts within the desert.
They have since used such hideouts to ambush Kurdish-led forces and Syrian authorities troops, whereas persevering with to mount assaults in neighbouring Iraq. —Agence France-Presse
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
