SCORES KILLED IN SYRIA SUICIDE ATTACKS
More than 180 people dead after ISIS onslaught in Sweida province
More than 180 people were killed in south Syria’s Sweida province yesterday as ISIS launched an onslaught of attacks and suicide bombings.
Those killed in the attacks included 62 civilians, in one of the group’s deadliest assaults in the country.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the violence on the Telegram messaging application, saying “soldiers of the caliphate” attacked Syrian government troops and security outposts in Sweida city, then detonated their explosive belts.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three suicide attackers set off booby-trapped belts in Sweida city, as other blasts hit villages to the north and east.
A fourth suicide explosion hit the city later.
“ISIS fighters then stormed villages in the province’s northeast and killed residents in their homes,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Observatory, from Britain.
The attacks also killed 94 regime fighters, most of whom were residents who had picked up weapons to defend their villages, and 30 ISIS fighters, including the attackers.
Mr Abdel Rahman said the group followed up with more attacks, seizing three of the seven villages it had targeted.
Syria’s official news agency Sana published images of the aftermath, showing the remains of a victim sprawled on a staircase near a damaged wall. Abandoned shoes lay in the middle of the road among fruit that had spilled out of cartons.
The UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator in Syria, Ali Al Zaatari, condemned the “terrorist bombing in Sweida city today”, saying all civilians should be protected.
And the Russian Foreign Ministry said the ISIS attacks “confirm the need for energetic and co-ordinated efforts by the international community to eradicate this universal evil from Syrian territory”.
Mr Abdel Rahman said unidentified warplanes had been targeting ISIS fighters in the north and east.
In the north-eastern Hasakeh province, an improvised explosive device in Al Shaddadi city killed one person and damaged a car.
Despite pro-government forces removing the group from urban centres in eastern Syria last year, surprise raids in recent months have killed dozens of regime and allied fighters.
On Tuesday night the regime targeted the countryside in eastern Deir Ezzor, the Observatory reported.
In recent weeks regime forces have ousted rebels from most of the area, part of which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Although the regime controls almost all of Sweida province, ISIS retains a presence in desert areas north and east.
Government troops are now closing in on a patch of territory in nearby Deraa province held by the extremist group Jaish Khaled bin Al Walid, whose 1,000 fighters have pledged allegiance to ISIS.
Yesterday, Russia-backed regime forces pressed their heavy bombardment of the ISIS-held pocket in Deraa.
At least 41 civilians have been killed in air strikes on that holdout since July 19, the monitor says.
Fierce clashes between the
two sides have killed 49 regime fighters and 67 extremists.
Syria’s south is ostensibly protected from fighting by an internationally brokered ceasefire since last year, but violence has risen in recent weeks.
Last month, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad launched a lightning assault that battered rebel areas in the south and brought most of Deraa province under his control.
Mr Al Assad then moved on to Quneitra, the neighbouring province that borders the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
On Tuesday, a Syrian military source accused Israel of firing at one of its warplanes as it carried out operations against extremists in Quneitra.
Israel’s army earlier said it had shot down a Syrian fighter jet that had infiltrated Israeli airspace, risking another escalation around the buffer zone.
The Damascus regime has long accused Israel of backing ISIS and other anti-government factions. ISIS overran large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014.
More than 350,000 have been killed and millions displaced since Syria’s war started in 2011 .
ISIS yesterday claimed responsibility for a weekend shooting in which two people were killed in Toronto, Canada.
The group’s propaganda agency Amaq said the attacker was “one of the soldiers of the Islamic State”.
“He carried out the attack in response to calls to target nationals of countries of the coalition,” it said, referring to coalition forces who have been fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq since 2014.
Faisal Hussain fired a handgun into crowds in Toronto’s popular Greektown neighbourhood on Sunday night, killing two girls and wounding 13 people. ISIS did not provide evidence for its claim.
Canadian investigators said there was no national security risk after the shootings. They are continuing to investigate the life of the 29-year-old gunman for clues to what prompted the rampage.
“At this stage, based on the state of the investigation that is led by the Toronto police service, there is no connection between that individual and national security,” Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said on Tuesday.
The attacker died after a gunfight with police. His family has said he suffered lifelong “severe mental health challenges”, but they never imagined he would do such a thing.
It was not clear whether Hussain took his own life or was killed by police, or where he obtained his handgun.
The shooting in a normally safe city stunned residents who were already unsettled by an attack only three months ago when a man used a van to plough through pedestrians on a city pavement, killing 10 people and injuring 14 in an attack apparently aimed at women.
Canada overhauled its gun-control laws after the country’s worst mass shooting in 1989, when Marc Lepine shot dead 14 women and himself at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique college.
It is now illegal to possess an unregistered handgun or any kind of rapid-fire weapon. Canada also requires training, personal risk assessment, two references, spousal notification and criminal record checks for gun registration.
Although mass shootings are rare in Canada’s largest city, Toronto police had posted dozens of extra officers over the weekend to deal with a recent rise in gun violence.
The city has had 23 gun killings this year, compared with 16 fatal shootings in the first half of last year.
Police Chief Mark Saunders said he would not speculate on the motive for Sunday’s attack.
“We do not know why this has happened yet,” Mr Saunders said. “It’s going to take some time.”