BEIRUT—The ISIS terrorist group has carried out its deadliest attacks in more than a year, killing dozens of civilians and security officers in the deserts of central Syria, even as people of northern Syria have been digging out of the wreckage from the region’s devastating earthquake.
The bloodshed was a reminder of the persistent threat from ISIS, whose sleeper cells still terrorize populations nearly four years after the group was defeated in Syria.
The attacks also underscored the terrorists’ limitations. ISIS terrorist have found refuge in the remote deserts of Syria’s interior and along the Iraqi-Syrian border. From there, they lash out against civilians and security forces in both countries. But they are also hemmed in by opponents on all sides: Syrian government troops as well as Kurdish-led fighters who control eastern Syria and are backed by U.S. forces. American raids with their Kurdish-led allies have repeatedly killed or caught ISIS leaders and, earlier this month, killed two senior ISIS figures.
The ISIS attacks this month were largely against a very vulnerable target: Syrians hunting truffles in the desert.
The truffles are a seasonal delicacy that can be sold for a high price. Since the truffle hunters work in large groups in remote areas, ISIS terrorists in previous years have repeatedly preyed on them, emerging from the desert to abduct them, kill some and ransom others for money.
On Feb. 11, ISIS fighters kidnapped about 75 truffle hunters outside the town of Palmyra. At least 16 were killed, including a woman and security officers, 25 were released and the rest remain missing.
Six days later, on Friday, they attacked a group of truffle hunters outside the desert town of Sukhna, just up the highway from Palmyra, and fought with troops at a security checkpoint close by. At least 61 civilians and seven soldiers were killed. Many of the truffle hunters in the group work for three local businessmen close to the Syrian military and pro-government militias, which may have prompted ISIS to target them, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, and the Palmyra News Network, an activist collective that covers developments in the desert areas.
Smaller attacks around the area killed 12 other people, including soldiers, pro-government fighters and civilians.
The area is far from the northern regions devastated by the Feb. 6 earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria. Still, ISIS terrorists “took advantage of the earthquake to send a message that the organization is still present,” said Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Observatory.
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