Surprise attacks of Isis make more than 200 dead in south-west of Syria | News from the world

More than 200 people were killed in a brutal surprise offensive by the Islamic State in Syria, involving multiple suicide bombings and simultaneous raids in which militants stormed villages and slaughtered people. civilians

. the neighboring towns and villages in southwestern Syria – areas that before the war were mainly populated by members of the Druze minority sect, and which are officially under government control but have remained outside the fighting that has devastated the major part of the country. seven years.

The health director of Sweida Province told Sham FM, a pro-government government, that 215 people had been killed in the attack.

Earlier, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said that the death toll had reached at least 156 people, and local journalists said the number was at least 175.

Activists also reportedly kidnapped dozens Local sources said the attacks began almost simultaneously in the early hours of Wednesday, between 3:50 and 4:30 am.

"They attacked the houses in a coordinated attack, knocked on doors, then went into houses and killed people," said Ahed Mrad, a Sweida journalist. that a bullet would be fired because they were going into the houses and slaughtering people silently, at dawn, without anyone knowing it. "

Isis claimed responsibility for the killing. offensive, which turned into armed clashes with local militiamen.The terrorist group also launched two suicide attacks on the provincial capital, also called Sweida.

Syrian media reported that government forces had killed two kamikazes before they could blow up their vests.

The offensive was one of the deadliest. Sweida and government controlled areas in recent months.This was produced when the government Bashar al-Assad continued to campaign in the neighboring province of Daraa to regain control of all of southern Syria.

Isis still controls a strip of territory in Daraa in the Yarmouk River Valley, near the border with Israel's occupied Golan. The area has been the target of unrelenting air strikes in recent days to force the capitulation of militants.

The fighters who led the attacks were able to emerge from Isis-controlled territory in the eastern desert of Syria, where more fighters arrived in May from the southern suburbs of Damascus after a government offensive that forced their surrender. who once controlled almost half of Syria's landmass in 2015, saw the territory under their command shrink under the concerted campaigns of the US-led coalition and Syrian government forces during the war. last year. But they still constitute a potential danger by isolated attacks and occasional coordinated raids while they continue to insurgency their remaining hiding places.

The SOHR said that government forces had fought jihadists who stormed the villages of Isis' pocket. city. Government troops and allied forces occupy the entire province of Sweida with the exception of this enclave.

The air force shelled militant hiding places in the northeast of the city, the media added, adding that calm prevailed in the region. Activists could launch follow-up raids.

The UN humanitarian coordinator in Syria condemned the attack, saying civilians and civilian infrastructure should be protected and spared "violence and conflict".