The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed yesterday that an attack attributed to ISIS in a desert area in central Syria on Friday killed 68 people, according to new figures that could be increased. “A total of 61 civilians and 7 military personnel were killed in the attack” in the desert in eastern Homs province, Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the observatory, told AFP. The victims were gathering truffles in the desert.
This attack came days after a similar attack on February 11 in the same area that killed 16 people. the same attack.
Desert truffles are usually harvested between February and April and are sold at a high price. The Syrian observatory said the attackers were on motorcycles.
ISIS did not report the attack. And Syrian state television reported that “53 people picking truffles were killed in an ISIS attack southeast of the city of al-Sukhna, in the eastern province of Homs.”
Friday’s attack was the most brutal the jihadist organization has launched in more than a year, when it attacked a prison in northwestern Syria, specifically in an area controlled by Kurdish forces. In recent months, the organization has stepped up its bloody attacks, despite the loss of strongholds in Syria and the strikes against the US-led international coalition against jihadists. Since 2011, Syria has been engulfed in a bloody and complex conflict that has resulted in the death of about half a million people, the massive destruction of infrastructure and the displacement of more than half of the population inside and outside the country.
