More than 150 dead in IS attacks on southern Syria

TIL Desk/World/Beirut/ A string of suicide blasts and raids claimed by the Islamic State group killed more than 150 people in southern Syria today, in one of the jihadists’ deadliest ever assaults in the country. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacks hit several areas of the largely government-held southern province of Sweida, where IS retains a presence in a northeastern desert region.

They came almost a week into a deadly Russia-backed regime campaign to oust IS fighters from a holdout in a neighbouring province of the country’s south. IS claimed responsibility for the violence, saying “soldiers of the caliphate” attacked Syrian government positions and security outposts in Sweida city, then detonated their explosive belts.

The Britain-based Observatory said three suicide attackers set off booby-trapped belts in Sweida city, as other blasts hit villages to the north and east. A fourth suicide explosion hit the city later. “IS fighters then stormed villages in the province’s northeast and killed residents in their homes,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said. The suicide blasts and raids killed 156 people including 62 civilians, the Observatory said.