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The scene of an Islamic State attack targeting a bus transporting soldiers in Syria. Photo: SANA / AFP

Islamic State claims responsibility for Syria bus ambush that killed 37 soldiers

  • A statement by IS’ propaganda arm Amaq said its fighters had ‘ambushed a bus transporting apostate Nusayri army elements’
  • The vehicle was targeted ‘with heavy weapons’ and ‘multiple explosive devices’, the statement said

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility on Thursday for an attack that killed 37 soldiers in Syria the day before jihadists ambushed a bus in eastern Syria.

War monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday IS had attacked soldiers as they travelled home for holidays in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, killing 37.

It said eight officers were among those killed while 12 other soldiers were wounded in the attack.

A statement by IS’s propaganda arm Amaq said its fighters had “ambushed a bus transporting apostate Nusayri army elements,” using a derogatory term for the Alawite sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

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Entering its 10th year, Syrian civil war remains the 21st century’s deadliest conflict so far

Entering its 10th year, Syrian civil war remains the 21st century’s deadliest conflict so far

The vehicle was targeted “with heavy weapons” and “multiple explosive devices, which led to destroying the bus and killing nearly 40 elements and wounding others”, added the statement, according to SITE Intelligence, which monitors jihadist activities worldwide.

“It was one of the deadliest attacks since the fall of the IS (self-proclaimed) caliphate” last year, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said on Wednesday.

IS overran large parts of Syria and Iraq and proclaimed a cross-border “caliphate” in 2014, before multiple offensives in the two countries led to its territorial defeat.

The group was overcome in Syria in March last year, but sleeper cells continue to launch attacks namely in the vast desert that stretches from the central province of Homs to Deir Ezzor and the border with Iraq.

The official news agency SANA reported on Wednesday that a “terrorist attack” on a bus killed “25 citizens” and wounded 13.

The Observatory said two other buses which were part of the convoy managed to escape.

The war in Syria has killed more than 387,000 people since it started in 2011, the Observatory says.

The dead include more than 130,500 pro-government fighters, among them foreigners, as well as 117,000 civilians.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Dozens of soldiers killed in bus ambush by Isis
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