BEIRUT, Lebanon: Twenty Syrian pro-govt soldiers and affiliated forces were killed in two attacks by Islamic State group fighters Thursday on Damascus-controlled areas of the war-torn country, said a war monitor.
A total of “16 regime forces and pro-government gunmen were killed in an IS attack on a military bus in the eastern countryside of Homs province,” the Syrian Observatory for Human rights said.
The British-based monitor further said that four regime forces were killed in another IS attack on a military site in the Albukamal countryside in eastern Syria.
According to the monitor, at least nine members of the Quds Brigade, a group comprising Palestinian fighters that has received support from Damascus ally Moscow in recent years, are among the dead.
The monitor said IS militants “executed” eight Syrian soldiers in late March, and also reported that 14 soldiers had been killed by the jihadists in the past few days.
In 2014, IS took control of large swaths of Syria and Iraq, declared a “caliphate” and began a reign of terror.
Although defeated on Syrian soil in 2019, its remaining forces continue to carry out deadly attacks, mainly pro-government forces and Kurdish-led fighters, especially in the vast Badia desert, which stretches from the outskirts of Damascus to the Iraqi border.
Syria war has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions since it began in March 2011 with Damascus’ brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.
