DAMASCUS (AP/ Xinhua) – Landmines left behind by the Daesh terrorist group in central Syria went off in two different locations on Monday, killing 10 workers as they were collecting truffles in the countryside and wounding 12, state media reported.
According to Syria’s state news agency SANA, the two mines exploded east of the central town of Salamiyeh. All the casualties were taken to a hospital in the town, the report added. It wasn’t immediately clear what had triggered the explosions.
It is not uncommon for mines left behind years ago, when Daesh controlled large parts of Syria, to go off inadvertently, usually when stepped on, inflicting casualties.
Daesh was driven out of all the territory it once held in Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2019, but the extremists left behind countless bombs and booby traps, and large areas have yet to be cleared. The militant group’s sleeper cells still carry deadly attacks both in Syria and Iraq.
SANA said the first explosion on Monday killed nine people and wounded two while the second killed one person and wounded 10.
Earlier this month, Daesh sleeper cells attacked workers collecting truffles near the central town of Sukhna, killing at least 53 people, mostly workers but also some Syrian government security forces.
The truffles are a seasonal delicacy that can be sold for a high price. Since the truffle hunters work in large groups in remote areas, Daesh terrorists in previous years have repeatedly preyed on them, emerging from the desert to abduct them, kill some and ransom others for money.
On the other side of the border, Iraqi security forces killed on Sunday 17 Daesh terrorists in an operation in western Iraq, the Iraqi military said.
Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) forces launched an operation at dawn to hunt down Daesh terrorists in the Akashat area in the desert of Iraq’s western province of Anbar, spokesman of the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces Yahia Rasoul said in a statement.
Rasoul said that the forces clashed with Daesh terrorists in the area and killed 17 of them, including a prominent figure in the terrorist group, without giving further details about the identities of the killed militants.