Scores killed by ISIL in ‘massacre’ in Syria

Islamic State militants killed scores of people execution style in attacks on government-held areas in Syria’s city of Deir al-Zor on Saturday, with state media denouncing a “massacre.”

A source close to the Syrian government told Reuters news agency that the Islamic State fighters killed at least 25 people, while Syria’s state news agency Sana, quoting residents, said as many as “300 civilians” were killed in the onslaught.

If confirmed it would be one of the highest tolls for a single day in Syria’s nearly five-year war. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the violence in the country through a wide network of local sources, said the militants killed dozens. “We have 60 people confirmed killed, but the number is big. The details are hard to get so far but the deaths are in dozens,” the Observatory's head Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters.

The Observatory said earlier that at least 35 soldiers and pro-government fighters were killed in the attacks. Most of those killed were beheaded.

A Syrian source told Reuters that the militants first sent six suicide bombers to try and break into military positions but failed, before committing a “massacre among the civilians.”

The bloodshed in Deir Ezzor came as regime forces battled Isis in the northern province of Aleppo, killing at least 16 jihadists, and as airstrikes hit the Isis stronghold of Raqqa.

Quoting “local sources”, Syria’s state news agency Sana denounced a “massacre”.

“The [Isis] terrorists carried out a massacre in Al-Baghaliyeh, claiming the lives of around 300 civilians, most of them women, children and elderly people,” the agency said.

It quoted the Syrian prime minister, Wael al-Halaqi, as saying that the “legal and moral responsibility for this barbaric and cowardly massacre ... lies on the shoulders of all the states that support terrorism and that fund and arm takfiri [Sunni extremist] groups”.

According to the SOHR, the advance puts Isis in control of around 60% of Deir Ezzor city, capital of the province of the same name in an oil-rich region bordering Iraq.

Isis said its fighters carried out several suicide bombings against regime forces in Deir Ezzor and seized control of Al-Baghaliyeh and other areas.

Islamic State group is in control of most of the eastern province while the government is holding parts of the city including a military airport.

Deir al-Zor province links Islamic State's de facto capital in Raqqa with territory controlled by the group in Iraq.

Government-held areas in the city had been under siege by Islamic State fighters for more than a year and more than 200,000 people there are living in dire conditions lacking food and medicine.