An attack by the Islamic State group (IS) killed at least 11 people hunting desert truffles in northern Syria on Sunday, in the latest such incident, a war monitor said.
Every year between February and April, hundreds of impoverished Syrians risk their lives in search of delicious food in the vast Syrian desert, which is a known hideout for jihadists and is also littered with landmines.
In a country that has endured 13 years of war and a severe economic crisis, desert truffles can fetch high prices.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that “Islamic State militants detonated a bomb in their car passing through the desert of Raqqa province in northern Syria, killing at least 11 truffle collectors.”
The attackers opened fire after the explosion, the Observatory added.
The UK-based monitoring group, which has a network of sources inside Syria, said residents were still searching for missing people and noted that jihadists had kidnapped three other hunters.
IS took control of large areas of Syria in 2014. A military operation backed by the U.S.-led coalition led to the group’s territorial capture in March 2019, but its remnants continue to hide in the desert and launch deadly attacks.
The global jihadist group’s reach extends beyond Syria, with IS claiming an attack on a concert hall in the Russian capital of Moscow on Friday that killed 137 people.
In early March, 19 truffle collectors were killed when their vehicle hit a landmine in an area of Raqqa, Syria that is infested by Islamic State extremists, the Observatory said at the time.
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