ISIL kills 34 Assad fighters in Homs

More than 20 civilians killed in raids in the north

BEIRUT // ISIL fighters killed at least 34 Syrian soldiers yesterday in an assault on Homs, an opposition monitoring group said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said that 22 civilians were killed in air raids on ISIL-held areas in northern Syria.

ISIL launched attacks near the Mahr and Shaar oilfields and gasfields and elsewhere in the eastern Homs desert, the Observatory said.

“ISIL took control of seven checkpoints and other positions held by government forces, who were forced to withdraw amid fierce clashes,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The extremist group once held several key towns in Homs but has been driven from all but the desert in the east of the province.

It regularly attacks isolated army positions in the area, as well as oilfields under government control. Some northern parts of Homs are held by rebel groups, but the government holds the rest of the province.

Farther north, 11 civilians were killed in a raid believed to have been carried out by the United States-led coalition fighting ISIL in the village of Al Mashrifa in Raqqa province on Wednesday. Another three people were killed in raids, also believed to have been carried out by coalition aircraft, on the village of Al Abarah in Raqqa, said the Observatory, which determines whose planes carry out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

Elsewhere, eight people were killed in raids on the ISIL-held village of Bzaa in Aleppo province yesterday, the Observatory said, although it could not confirm who was behind the raids. The area is one where both Turkey and the coalition operate.