(Beirut) At least 20 people were killed on Sunday when armed individuals stormed a town in the southern province of Daraa in Syria, an NGO announced, the day after the death of a group of children in a blast.
The group that carried out the bloody assault is led by a former member of the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS), the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) said.
The NGO adds that no local group intervened, the former member of IS now being “affiliated with the military intelligence branch” of the Damascus government and close to the head of this branch in Daraa.
Deraa was the birthplace of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, but returned to Damascus control in 2018 under a Russian-backed ceasefire deal.
Since then, the province has been plagued by a wave of homicides and clashes and living conditions are precarious.
According to the OSDH, an individual identified as Ahmad al-Labbad, who “leads an armed group”, was accused by a rival group of having planted an explosive device which exploded on Saturday in Sanamayn, in the province of Daraa, killing eight children.
Ahmad al-Labbad, who previously worked for State Security, denied the accusations, according to the NGO, which is based in the United Kingdom but has a vast network of sources in Syria.
On Sunday, this rival group stormed the neighborhood where Ahmad al-Labbad resides in Sanamayn, triggering clashes with his group, the OSDH said.
Mutilated bodies
The group led by the former IS member notably attacked and burned the houses of the Labbad family, arrested the people living there before executing them in public and mutilating their bodies, at the same time chanting religious slogans , according to the OSDH.
Most of the victims were fighters from the al-Labbad group, 14 of whom died in the assault, but also a woman and two children from the Labbad family, according to the same source, which added that two other civilians were killed. also perished
On the side of the attackers, a former member of IS was killed, according to the OSDH which had reported 17 deaths in a previous report.
Syrian state media did not immediately report violence.
The official Sana news agency, citing a police source, provided a different toll for Saturday’s explosion which it blamed on “terrorists”, saying seven children had been killed.
Attacks, armed clashes and assassinations of loyalists, former opponents or civilians working for the government regularly take place in Deraa, where IS claims attacks.
Former rebels who accepted an agreement sponsored by Russia, Damascus’ main ally, were able to keep their light weapons there.
At the end of January, eight fighters affiliated with IS were killed during clashes with local factions, according to the OSDH.
Started in 2011, the war in Syria has left more than 507,000 dead and displaced millions.