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Syria: Isis attacks in and around Sweida city leave dozens dead | |
(about 7 hours later) | |
Islamic State militants have killed scores of people in a series of attacks on government-held parts of south-western Syria, including suicide blasts in Sweida city, official sources said. | |
The seemingly coordinated attacks were the deadliest in government-held territory in many months. At least 50 people were killed and 78 wounded, the head of the Sweida health authority told al-Manar TV, which is run by Damascus’s ally Hezbollah. | |
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based monitoring group, said at least 100 people had been killed. Isis said in a statement that it had carried out the attacks. | |
The jihadists also launched simultaneous attacks on several villages north-east of Sweida city, where they clashed with government forces, state media and the Observatory said. | |
At least two attackers blew themselves up in the city itself, one near a marketplace and a second in another district, state television said. The state news agency SANA said two other Isis militants were killed before they could detonate their bombs. | |
The SOHR said jihadists had seized hostages from the villages they attacked. It said that at least 35 civilians were among the dead. | |
The governor of Sweida, Amer al-Eshi , said the authorities had also arrested another attacker. “The city of Sweida is secure and calm now,” he told state-run Ikhbariyah TV. | |
Isis was driven from nearly all the territory it once held in Syria last year in separate offensives by the Russian-backed army and a US-backed militia alliance. | |
Forces loyal to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, have since gone on to retake the last remaining rebel enclaves near Damascus and Homs, and have swept rebels from the south-west. | |
The SOHR said government forces had battled jihadists who stormed the villages from an Isis pocket north-east of the city. Government troops and allied forces hold all of Sweida province except for that enclave. | |
The air force pounded militant hideouts north-east of the city after soldiers also thwarted an attempt by Isis fighters to infiltrate Douma, Tima and al-Matouna villages, state media said. | |
The army and villagers regained control of a hill and broke a brief siege of another nearby village after clashes, Ikhbariyah said. | |
With the help of Russian air power, the Syrian army has been hitting Isis in a separate area further west, near the frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. | |
The Yarmouk basin in south-west Syria remains in jihadist hands after an army offensive defeated rebel factions in other parts of the south-west. The operation has focused on Deraa and Quneitra provinces. | |
Syria | Syria |
Middle East and North Africa | Middle East and North Africa |
Islamic State | Islamic State |
news | news |
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