According to official media, an ambush in central Syria on Friday that was attributed to the Islamic State group claimed at least 53 lives, making it the group’s deadliest attack in more than a year.
“Fifty-three citizens who were truffle hunting were killed during an attack by the terrorists of IS to the southwest of the town of Al-Sokhna” in the desert east of Homs, state television said.
46 civilians and 7 troops, according to Walid Audi, the director of the Palmyra hospital.
According to Audi, their remains had “been delivered to the hospital after the ambush” that targeted dozens, according to the pro-government radio station Sham FM.
The incident was also reported early on Friday by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is located in Britain.
Meanwhile on Friday, the US Central Command reported that an explosion during an operation that killed a senior IS leader in Syria had injured four American military personnel.
According to the statement, the US military personnel and a service dog were receiving medical care at an American hospital in Iraq when the IS leader, Hamza al-Homsi, was assassinated.
Many people, including women and children, have been targeted in recent years while truffle hunting in central, northeastern and eastern areas of Syria.
Sixteen people, mostly civilians, were killed on Saturday in a similar attack targeting foragers in the same area, said the Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources on the ground in Syria.
Dozens of others were kidnapped in the attack, the Observatory said, adding that 25 of them were released but the fate of the others remains unknown.
And in April 2021, the extremist group launched a similar attack, abducting 19 people, mostly civilians, in the eastern countryside of Hama province.
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 to hideouts in the desert.
Since then, they have continued to launch strikes in neighboring Iraq while using similar hiding places to ambush forces headed by the Kurds and soldiers from the Syrian government.
Daesh desert hideouts are still the target of ongoing airstrikes by Syrian and Russian helicopters.
Despite losses, the jihadist group has “kept its ability to launch assaults at a constant pace,” according to the UN.
It is estimated that the jihadist group has between 6,000 and 10,000 fighters present in both Iraq and Syria, taking advantage of the two countries’ porous border and concentrating mostly in rural areas.
