Shropshire Star

Death toll tops 200 as Islamic State targets Syria region

Suicide bombings in the city of Sweida were apparently timed to coincide with attacks on villages.

Published
Fighting between Syrian forces and IS

Islamic State fighters ambushed a city and several villages in southern Syria on Wednesday, triggering clashes between residents and the militants that provincial health officials said killed more than 200 people.

The coordinated attacks across the province of Sweida, which included several suicide bombings, shattered the calm of a region that has been largely insulated from the worst of the violence of Syria’s seven-year civil war.

The suicide bomb blasts inside the provincial capital, also called Sweida, were apparently timed to coincide with attacks on villages in the eastern countryside, creating mayhem across the province.

The blast site
Syrians inspect the site of a suicide attack in Sweida (SANA/AP)

The attacks triggered deadly clashes between pro-government fighters and residents who picked up weapons to defend their hometowns on one side and IS militants on the other.

By nightfall, the province’s health directorate had recorded 204 civilians killed and 180 wounded, according to local official Hassan Omar, making it the single bloodiest day for the province since the 2011 national revolt that sparked the ongoing civil war.

Sultan Bou Ammar, a resident of the village of Shbiki, said some residents unwittingly opened their doors when militants knocked early on Thursday morning, so unexpected was the attack.

“They kidnapped more than 40 people, all of them women or children,” said Bou Ammar.

A poster of Bashar Assad
The attacks are the worst in months (AP)

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said at least 183 people were killed, including 94 residents who were part of local defence militias that have the backing of the Syrian government. At least 45 IS militants were killed in the fighting.

Al-Ikhbariya state-run TV showed images from several locations in the province and its capital where the bombers blew themselves up.

The rare attacks in Sweida, populated mainly by Syria’s minority Druze, came amid a government offensive elsewhere in the country’s south. Government forces are battling the IS-linked group near the frontier with Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and near the border with Jordan. The group also has a small presence on the eastern edge of Sweida province.

Syrian troops
Syrian troops flash the victory sign next to the Syrian flag in Tell al-Haara (AP)

Since their offensive in June, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces have retaken territories controlled by the rebels along the Golan Heights frontier and are now fighting militants in the country’s southern tip.

IS has been largely defeated in Syria and Iraq, but still has pockets of territory it controls in eastern and southern Syria.

The extremist group boasted that its “soldiers” killed more than 100 people in Sweida. In a statement posted on the group’s social media channels, it said its militants carried out surprise attacks on government and security centers, sparking clashes with Syrian troops and allied militias.

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