Isil suicide attacks in southern Syria claim 183 victims

MORE than 180 people have been killed in a series of coordinated Isil suicide bombings in southern Syria, in one of the deadliest assaults of the seven-year civil war.

At least 183 people, including 89 civilians, died in attacks across Sweida city yesterday, the bloodiest of which saw a motorcycle bomber strike a busy vegetable market in the morning rush hour.

Sweida, located halfway between Damascus and Amman, is mostly under the control of the government, and while Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) has a presence on the outskirts, attacks by the group are rare.

“Three bombers with explosive belts targeted Sweida city alone, while the other blasts hit villages to the north and east,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. Two other attackers were killed before they could detonate their explosives. Later, a fourth suicide attack hit the city.

Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Uk-based observatory, said the jihadists then followed up with further attacks, seizing three of the seven villages they had targeted.