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SYRIA-CONFLICT-JIHADIST
IS claims Syria bus ambush that killed 37 soldiers
BEIRUT, Jan 1, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – The Islamic State group claimed
responsibility Thursday for an attack that killed nearly 40 soldiers in Syria
the day before when jihadists ambushed a bus in eastern Syria.
War monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday IS
had attacked regime soldiers as they travelled home for holidays in the
eastern province of Deir Ezzor, killing 37.
It said eight officers were among those killed while 12 other soldiers were
wounded in the attack.
A statement by IS’s propaganda arm Amaq said its fighters had “ambushed a
bus transporting apostate Nusayri army elements,” using a derogatory term for
the Alawite sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.
The vehicle was targeted “with heavy weapons” and “multiple explosive
devices, which led to destroying the bus and killing nearly 40 elements and
wounding others”, added the statement, according to SITE Intelligence, which
monitors jihadist activities worldwide.
“It was one of the deadliest attacks since the fall of the IS (self-
proclaimed) caliphate” last year, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP
on Wednesday.
IS overran large parts of Syria and Iraq and proclaimed a cross-border
“caliphate” in 2014, before multiple offensives in the two countries led to
its territorial defeat.
The group was overcome in Syria in March last year, but sleeper cells
continue to launch attacks namely in the vast desert that stretches from the
central province of Homs to Deir Ezzor and the border with Iraq.
The official news agency SANA reported on Wednesday that a “terrorist
attack” on a bus killed “25 citizens” and wounded 13.
The Observatory said two other buses which were part of the convoy managed
to escape.
The war in Syria has killed more than 387,000 people since it started in
2011, the Observatory says.
The dead include more than 130,500 pro-government fighters, among them
foreigners, as well as 117,000 civilians.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0923 hrs