ISLAMIC STATE STRIKES SYRIA’S DEIR EZZOR, AT LEAST 75 DEAD

BEIRUT/ADEN: At least 75 civilians were killed in an Islamic State car bombing that struck a gathering of people displaced by fighting in eastern Syria, a monitor said on Sunday.

Saturday’s attack in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor killed “at least 75 displaced civilians including children” and wounded 140, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Abdel Rahman said the victims had fled battles in the province, where Syrian regime forces and a US-backed Kurdish- Arab alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces, are fighting the extremist group in separate offensives.

Fighting across Deir Ezzor province has sent thousands of civilians fleeing for their lives, some straight into the desert.

Some had sought refuge in a desert area controlled by the SDF on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River where the bombing struck.

ISIS CLAIMS ‘ONGOING’ ATTACK IN YEMEN

The Islamic State claimed a major attack on Yemen’s government bastion of Aden on Sunday which killed at least 15 people, wounded 18 others and sparked a hostage crisis.

IS claimed the attack on the criminal investigations unit in an online statement released by its “Aden and Abyan province”.

Security officials in the southern province of Aden, where the Yemeni government is based, said an explosives-rigged car blew up outside the investigations unit, killing six officers on the spot along with the driver.

Around 30 gunmen then stormed the unit and freed around 50 detainees from their holding cells, some of whom took up arms to fight alongside the militants, according to a high-ranking official.

The security officials said four suicide bombers blew themselves up during the attack, one of them targeting the convoy of Yemen’s chief of security. The gunmen also took an unknown number of people hostage inside the unit.