Terror attack in Syria kills 18 soldiers and wounds 27 others

A military bus was struck by a pre-planted explosive device in Damascus on 13 October, killing 18 soldiers and wounding 27 others, Sputnik quoted a security source as saying.

The agency added that the explosive detonated as the military bus was transporting soldiers and officers of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), with witnesses confirming that the detonation occurred on the Al-Saboura road, 16 kilometers southwest of Damascus.

The Syrian military source said: “a military bus in the Damascus countryside was hit by a terrorist detonation with a pre-planted explosive device, which led to the death of 18 soldiers and the injury of 27 others.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, nor does Damascus’s government suspect a specific group.

However, ISIS – still present in Syria – regularly carries out devastating attacks on civilians and the Syrian army, using tactics similar to those employed in the recent attack on the military bus.

Last October, 14 SAA soldiers were killed in a terror attack of a similar kind, as the culprits attached two explosives to an overnight military bus at the President Bridge in Damascus.

Similarly, back in June, 11 soldiers of the SAA and two civilians were killed in an ambush on a military bus in the northern city of Raqqa.

The attack took place in the northern Raqqa countryside, which is under the control of the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militias.

No specific group had taken responsibility for the attack at the time, however, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the attack was carried out by ISIS sleeper cells who are known to launch hit-and-run attacks across Syria’s desert regions.

Extremist groups have carried out similar attacks against the SAA in recent months, the last of which occurred on 13 May in Aleppo, when at least 10 Syrian soldiers were killed in a missile attack on the bus they were traveling in.

Although ISIS has lost the vast majority of the territory it previously occupied in Syria, the extremist group still operates in small pockets across the country’s desert regions.

Source: Thecradle