At least 11 people, mostly civilians, were killed in a central Syria attack blamed on the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group, a war monitor said Sunday.
The IS group "attacked about 75 people on Saturday while they were collecting truffles in the Palmyra area, in the eastern countryside of Homs," said the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group of unclear funding.
The attack killed "10 civilians, including a woman, and a member of the (Syrian) regime forces," it said, adding that others remain missing.
Syria’s state news agency SANA reported the attack but gave a lower corpse count, saying IS "terrorists" fired machine guns and killed four civilians, including a woman.
Ten others were maimed in the attack, some "critically," the news agency added.
After the jihadists lost their last scraps of territory following a military onslaught backed by a US-led coalition in March 2019, IS remnants in Syria mostly retreated into desert hideouts in the country’s east.
They have since used such hideouts to ambush Kurdish-led forces and Syrian government troops while continuing to mount attacks in Iraq.
Many people, including women and kiddies, have been targeted in recent years while truffle hunting in central, northeastern and eastern areas of Syria.
In April 2021, the holy warrior group launched a similar attack, abducting 19 people, mostly civilians, in the eastern countryside of the central city of Hama.
Syrian and Russian helicopters continue to launch
...KABOOM!...
s targeting IS desert hideouts.
The Syrian conflict, which was triggered by the suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations, has claimed around 500,000 lives and displaced around half the country’s prewar population.