IS claims responsibility for an attack that killed 33 Syrian soldiers

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an ambush in eastern Syria that killed and wounded dozens of soldiers as opposition activists said the death toll rose Saturday to at least 33 as some of the wounded succumbed to their injuries.

The attack is among the deadliest to be carried out this year by the extremists. IS sleeper cells still carry deadly attacks despite their defeat in Syria in 2019. The group once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq where they declared a caliphate in 2014.