BEIRUT // An ISIL assault led by suicide bombers on Tuesday killed dozens of people at a displacement camp near Syria’s border with Iraq, as pressure grows on the extremist group in both countries.
The violence killed at least 46 people and came as another surprise ISIL attack killed 10 soldiers in Iraq, to the south along the border.
As the tolls mounted, US president Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, discussed the need for “safe zones” in Syria in a telephone call, said the White House.
ISIL appears to be lashing out as it faces escalating offensives on its last two major bastions: Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in neighbouring Syria.
The group’s dawn attack in Syria’s north-east hit a makeshift displacement camp near the border with Iraq where some 300 families were waiting to cross into territory held by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the US-backed alliance leading the assault on Raqqa.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said at least five suicide bombers blew themselves up inside and outside the camp in Hassakeh province.
Heavy clashes ensued between the extremists and the SDF, said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
The monitoring group said at least 46 people were killed, including 31 civilians.
ISIL claimed the attack via its propaganda outlet Amaq, saying a group of its fighters targeted an SDF position near the camp as part of a multi-pronged assault on the rebel alliance.
Kamal Derbas, a press officer for the Kurdish Red Crescent, said the attack began at 4am.
Thousands of people – from the Syrian province of Deir Ezzor further south and from the Iraqi city of Mosul across the border – have used the crossing to reach safety, according to the International Rescue Committee.
“We are appalled and saddened to hear of the attacks today in Hassakeh province,” said IRC regional advocacy adviser Thomas Garofalo.
Conditions in the area are harsh, with little shelter, the authorities overstretched, and a risk of renewed violence.
The charity Save the Children also condemned the attack, saying it “regards the targeting of civilians, particularly children, as abhorrent”.
It said about 400 displaced people and refugees were being relocated to another camp as a result of the attack and ensuing gun battle.
In the ISIL attack in Iraq, meanwhile, militants fired on an army base near the remote outpost of Rutba, near the country’s western borders with Syria and Jordan.
ISIL appeared to be trying to breach the defence of Rutba, which is the last sizeable town on the road from Baghdad to the Jordanian border, as well as to create diversions to ease pressure on its fighters in Mosul, military officials said.
A massive offensive was launched in mid-October to retake Mosul, where ISIL leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi declared the establishment of the group’s so-called “caliphate” nearly three years ago.
* Agence France-Presse
