Islamic State bombings shatter quiet in Southern Syria, killing dozens

BEIRUT — The jihadis of the Islamic State group launched a series of coordinated attacks in southern Syria on Wednesday, shattering the quiet that had reigned in the area and killing at least 90 people, according to local officials and a war monitor.

The attacks, which included suicide bombings at a vegetable market and a public square in a provincial capital, along with raids on nearby villages, showed that the Islamic State could still inflict great damage in Syria, despite having lost most of the territory it once controlled.

The high death toll undermines the Syrian government’s narrative that the seven-year war is heading toward its conclusion, with President Bashar Assad working to restore stability. The dead included dozens of pro-government fighters, a conflict monitor said.

The attacks hit the city of Sweida, the capital of the province of the same name, along Syria’s border with Jordan. Most of the area’s residents are members of the Druze sect, and the area has largely been spared the violence that has torn apart other areas of Syria during the war.

Four suicide bombers entered the city Wednesday morning, Syrian state television said. One, on a motorcycle, struck a vegetable market. Another detonated his explosives in a public square. Two others blew themselves up while being approached by security forces, the broadcaster said.

It aired images of scattered vegetables and damaged cars in the street, where work crews were cleaning the area.

Syrian state media put the death toll in the bombings at 38, blaming the Islamic State for the attacks.

At the same time, Islamic State militants attacked a number of villages to the city’s north and east, killing civilians and clashing with local militias set up to defend the area, residents said.

“The people in eastern villages woke up this morning to see dead bodies in streets, some of them slaughtered with knives or in the head,” Mazayiad Hasson, a resident of the area, said through a messaging app.

A provincial health official, Hassan Omar, told The Associated Press that 90 people had been killed in the suicide attacks and clashes, and that 80 people were wounded. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group in Britain that opposes the Syrian government, put the overall death toll at more than 100, including pro-government fighters, civilians and militants.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks on its social media channels, saying that its fighters had killed more than 100 people. It said its militants had launched attacks on government facilities and clashed with Syrian forces before blowing themselves up.

The war in Syria began in 2011 with an uprising against Assad that turned into an armed rebellion. The chaos provided an opening for jihadi groups, particularly the Islamic State, which expanded rapidly in 2014 and went on to declare a caliphate that spanned large parts of Syria and Iraq.

The Syrian government, backed by Russia and Iran, has since regained control of most of the country’s center and its most highly populated areas, although parts of the north and east remain out of its hands.

The Islamic State’s fighters have lost most the territory they once controlled, but still hold pockets in the desert along the southern border. Analysts have warned that as the jihadis lose territory, they are likely to return to their roots as an underground insurgency, carrying out attacks like those Wednesday.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.