BEIRUT (AP) — A powerful truck bomb exploded on Friday in
a government-held village in central Syria, killing at least 34
civilians and wounding more than 50, as an al-Qaida breakaway group
captured a major town to the east, near the Iraqi border, activists
said.
Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
stormed the town of Muhassan on the Euphrates river after rebels from
the Western-backed Supreme Military Council defected to the jihadi
group, activists said. The village is in the eastern oil-rich province
of Deir el-Zour where the Islamic State has been on the offensive since
late April against rival jihadi and Islamic groups.
The capture of
Muhassan, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Iraqi border, and
two nearby villages, comes a week after the group swept across wide
areas in northern and central Iraq, capturing that country’s second
largest city of Mosul, and carving out a large region straddling the
border.
"The capture of Muhassan is one of the biggest victories
for the Islamic State in Deir el-Zour because it is home of the main
center of the military council in the province," said Rami Abdurrahman,
who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
An
activist based in the province who goes by the name Abu Abdullah said
residents told him that Islamic State fighters raise their black flags
around the town. He added via Skype that many of the rebels in Muhassan
expressed loyalty to the group.
The Islamic State’s seven-week
offensive in Deir el-Zour against rival groups including the
al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham has
killed more than 640 people and uprooted at least 130,000, according to
activists.
Earlier Friday, state news agency SANA said the truck
bomb exploded in Horrah village in the countryside near the central city
of Hama. It quoted an unnamed official in the Hama police command as
saying that the truck was loaded with about three tons of explosives.
The
attack "caused the destruction of a large number of houses and
buildings in the village," the report said. It did not immediately
provide further information on the attack or say what the target was.
The
Islamic Front, an umbrella for several rebel groups in Syria, claimed
responsibility for the attack in a video posted online, which showed a
night-time explosion that sent a ball of fire into the sky.
The
Observatory, which documents the violence in Syria through an extensive
network of activists on the ground, said at least 37 people were killed
and more than 40 others were wounded in the bombing. In a statement, it
said the toll was likely to rise because many of the wounded were in
critical condition.
Car bombs are common in Syria’s civil war, now
in its fourth year. The conflict has killed more than 160,000 people,
according to opposition activists. Nearly a third of those killed were
civilians.
The Syrian conflict started in March 2011 with Arab
Spring-inspired protests against President Bashar Assad’s rule but
escalated into a civil war after his forces launched a brutal crackdown
on dissent.
The war has since taken on strong sectarian overtones,
pitting a Sunni-led insurgency that includes al-Qaida-inspired
extremist groups against a government dominated by Assad’s minority
Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Foreign fighters and
Islamic extremists have taken on an increasingly prominent role among
the rebels, dampening the West’s support for the uprising against Assad.
The
Syrian conflict has unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe and displaced
some nine million people, a third of the pre-war population. More than
2.5 million Syrians have taken refuge in neighboring countries,
straining aid resources.
The United Nations refugee agency said
Friday that the number of people forced from their homes worldwide has
surged past 50 million for the first time since World War II. The
massive increase was mainly driven by Syria’s war.