A string of suicide blasts and raids claimed by the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) killed more than 180 people in southern Syria on Wednesday (July 25th), in one of the group's deadliest ever assaults in the country, AFP reported.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacks hit several areas of the largely government-held southern province of Sweida, where ISIS retains a presence in a northeastern desert region.
They came almost a week into a deadly Russia-backed regime campaign to oust ISIS fighters from a holdout in a neighbouring province of the country's south.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the violence, saying ISIS elements attacked Syrian government positions and security outposts in Sweida city, then detonated their explosive belts.
The Observatory said three suicide attackers set off booby-trapped belts in Sweida city, as other blasts hit villages to the north and east. A fourth suicide explosion hit the city later.
"ISIS fighters then stormed villages in the province's northeast and killed residents in their homes," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
The suicide blasts and raids killed 180 people including 62 civilians, the Observatory said.
The remaining 94 dead were pro-regime fighters, most of whom were residents who had picked up weapons to defend their villages, it said.
Sweida, whose residents are mostly from the Druze minority, has been relatively insulated from the war that has ravaged the rest of the country since 2011.
"It is the bloodiest death toll in Sweida province since the start of the war" and one of the deadliest ever in Syria, Abdel Rahman said.
The violence also left 30 ISIS fighters dead, including the suicide attackers.
The extremists captured at least three of the seven villages they targeted but clashes were ongoing Wednesday, the Observatory said.