Beirut: A car bombing carried out by Daesh killed dozens of displaced people in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Al Zor on Saturday, a monitor said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack targeted people displaced by fighting in the oil-rich province who had gathered on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, adding that dozens more were wounded.
The attack comes as Syrian and allied forces converged Saturday on holdout Daesh fighters in the border town of Al bukamal, a day after Russian-backed regime forces took full control of the provincial capital, also called Deir Al Zor, which was the last Syrian city where Daesh still had a presence.
“Daesh targeted with a car bomb displaced people on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, killing dozens and wounding dozens of others,” Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman said.
He said he could not immediately gave a specific toll of how many people were killed and wounded in the attack.
Abdul Rahman said the victims had fled battlegrounds in Deir Al Zor province, where the US-backed Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance is also on the offensive against Daesh.
The SDF is attacking Daesh on the eastern bank of the Euphrates which cuts across the province, while Russian-backed Syrian forces are battling the militants on the western bank of the river.
The parallel offensives have sent thousands of civilians fleeing for their lives, some straight into the desert.
Sonia Khush, Syria director at the Save the Children charity, said an estimated 350,000 people have fled the recent fighting in Deir Al Zor province, half of them children.
“The situation in the city, and surrounding countryside, has been especially bleak with civilians trapped between the fighting and all too often caught in the crossfire,” she said
The Euphrates Valley border area was the heart of the so-called “caliphate” Daesh proclaimed in 2014 and is now its last redoubt, where a US-led coalition supporting the military effort said around 1,500 militant fighters remained.
Despite being driven out from large parts of Deir Al Zor, Daesh still controls 37 per cent of the province and its fighters are deployed in the eastern side.
On Saturday, Daesh Iraqi Shiite militias were engaged in fierce clashes with Daesh in Al Bukamal.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes started late Friday and continued into Saturday. The Observatory said that Daesh militants inside Syria repelled an attack by Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, the paramilitary group of mostly Shiite fighters within the Iraqi security forces.
Jaafar Al Hussaini, spokesman for Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah, a group within the PMF, told The Associated Press his forces clashed with Daesh just metres from the border with Syria. He said his forces also fired rockets inside Syria from Qaim, the Iraqi border town reclaimed from IS Friday.
But Al Hussaini said his fighters didn’t cross into Syria. He said forces from Iraqi militias were already fighting in Syria alongside the Syrian government and other Iran-supported militias to reclaim the last stronghold of the group and secure the road between Iraq and Syria, all the way to Lebanon.
He said his forces are building berms along the border to prevent militants from sneaking back.
On Friday, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s military announced the capture of the eastern Syrian city of Deir Al Zor, while Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi proclaimed victory in retaking the town of Qaim on the border, the militants’ last significant urban area in Iraq. The Syrian forces are expected to now focus on Boukamal.
Al Bukamal is the last urban center for the militants in both Iraq and Syria where Syrian troops -backed by Russia and Iranian-supported militias - and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces are vying for control of the strategic border town, key to control of the borders between the two countries.
The proximity of forces in the area has raised concerns about potential clashes between them as they approach Boukamal from opposite sides of the Euphrates River, and now from across the border with Iraq.
Al Hussaini said the PMF will participate in the liberation of Al Bukamal and will head north to protect the borders and secure the road from Iran to Lebanon.
