IS attack kills 75 displaced Syrians

‘Cornered militants can still be deadly’

BEIRUT: A car bombing by the Islamic State group killed at least 75 displaced civilians who had fled fighting in eastern Syria, a monitor said, as the cornered extremists try to defend their last strongholds.

Syrian government troops meanwhile moved closer to the border town of Albu Kamal, the last urban zone still held by IS militant holdouts in Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday.

The regime’s forces “progressed rapidly” and are 15km from the town, the Britainbased monitor said.

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

The scale of the attack showed that despite losing vast swathes of territory it held in Iraq and Syria, the extremist group is still capable of mounting deadly attacks.

Abdel Rahman said “a new convoy of displaced people joined the gathering at the time of the attack”.

The displaced had fled battles in the province, where Russian-backed Syrian regime forces and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are fighting the militant group in separate offensives.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground inside Syria for its information, reported on Saturday that dozens had died in the bombing.

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

Saturday’s attack came a day after Russianbacked government forces seized Deir Ezzor city from the extremists.

IS, which in 2014 declared a “caliphate” spanning territory in Iraq and Syria roughly the size of Britain, has also lost most of the territory it once controlled in neighbouring Iraq, including second city Mosul.

On Friday, Iraqi forces retook the border town of Al-Qaim, also on the Euphrates river.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Sunday toured Al-Qaim and raised the national flag in the town centre.

The extremists who have lost most of the territory they once controlled are now confined to a small stretch of the Euphrates Valley border area, which was at the heart of IS’s so-called caliphate.

The US-led coalition has estimated that around 1,500 militants are still in the area.

Syrian regime forces have intensified their assault on IS in the area in a bid to seize Albu Kamal close to the Iraq border.

According to the Observatory, Iraqi militiamen have fought alongside Iraqi regime forces in the area.

Civilians caught in the fighting have tried to escape.

Aid group Save the Children estimates that some 350,000 people have fled the recent fighting in the oil-rich province, half of them children.