State media said that an attack in the Homs province of central Syria’s desert claimed at least 53 lives, and it blamed ISIL for the deaths (ISIS).
According to state news agency SANA, which cited the hospital’s administrator, the victims’ bodies that were brought to the Palmyra state hospital had head wounds from gunshots.
According to state media, the victims were attacked while collecting desert truffles. The Syrian government and its supporters are in charge of the province of Homs.
During an attack by IS terrorists southwest of the village of Al-Sokhna in the desert east of Homs, 53 residents who were out truffle hunting were slaughtered, according to official television.
Walid Audi, the hospital’s director, reported that there were 46 civilian and 7 military fatalities. Five injured persons were taken to a different hospital. According to one of the survivors, ISIL fighters set fire to their cars.
The attack elicited no instant accusations of responsibility.
The assault would be the worst by ISIL since its forces stormed a jail in the Kurdish-controlled northeastern city of Hassakeh in January 2022 in an effort to liberate fellow ISIL inmates, if it is determined that the group was behind it.
The group used to control large areas of terrain in Syria, but it lost that control as a result of successive offensives by US-backed fighters, Syrian government forces supported by Russia, local fighters, and rebels backed by Turkey.
ISIL now conducts hit-and-run attacks in Syria using sleeper cells.
In recent years, women and children have been targeted while out truffle hunting in Syria’s central, northeastern, and eastern regions.
Syrian government forces are dispersed around the nation and heavily rely on its allies, such as Iran and the Lebanese militant organization Hezbollah, to hold onto their holdings.
Separately on Friday, the US Central Command reported that an explosion during a mission that killed a senior ISIL leader in Syria, identified as Hamza al-Homsi, left four US military personnel injured.
