According to activists and state media, at least 53 people were killed in an attack by the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) in Syria. The attack occurred in the eastern city of Al-Suchna, the state agency Sana and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Friday evening. It was initially unclear whether the attackers shot their victims or killed them with explosives.
The terrorists were armed and on motorcycles, said the head of the observatory, Rami Abdel-Rahman, the German Press Agency. First, the IS fighters attacked a checkpoint and killed at least seven soldiers, then killed 46 civilians. According to the activists and Sana, people had collected truffles near the desert city before the attack. According to the observatory, several terrorists also managed to escape, along with a few victims.
Al-Suchna is located in the central province of Homs and became a strategically important IS bastion in 2015 before Syrian government troops expelled the terrorist militia from there two years later. Years ago, IS controlled large areas of Syria and neighboring Iraq. In the meantime, the IS has been defeated there militarily, but there are still active terrorist cells in both countries that carry out attacks.
Shortly before the attack became known, the US Department of Defense announced that the US military had killed a high-ranking IS member in a helicopter attack in north-eastern Syria.
