BEIRUT: Militant group Islamic State seized a Syrian gas field and killed at least 90 people yesterday in one of the bloodiest clashes between the Al Qaeda offshoot and President Bashar Al Assad’s forces, a monitoring group said.
Islamic State has made rapid gains in Syria in recent weeks, mostly by seizing territory from rival rebel groups, using weaponry brought in from Iraq where last month it managed to take large areas from government forces.
Activists say the Syrian air force has in recent weeks stepped up attacks on positions held by Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
Last morning, the group launched an attack against the Sha’ar gas field east of Homs, killing at least 90 of the men guarding it in a “wide assault” from several directions, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It said 21 Islamic State fighters were killed in the offensive.
The Observatory, which monitors violence in Syria through a network of sources in the country, quoted “trusted sources” as saying a further 270 guards, government forces and militia members loyal to Assad were missing, taken prisoner, wounded or killed.
“Since the beginning of the year there have been clashes between the Islamic State and the regime in some areas, but these are the largest,” the Observatory’s director Rami Abdurrahman said.
It was not immediately possible to verify the report. Syrian state media made no mention of the attack.
About 30 people had managed to escape to the nearby Hajjar field, the Observatory report added.
REUTERS
