BEIRUT: An attack by the militant Daesh group killed at least 11 people searching for desert truffles in northern Syria on Sunday, said a war monitor.
Hundreds of poor Syrians risk their lives to search for the delicacy in the vast Syrian desert between February and April each year. The area is known for terrorist’s hideout that is also littered with land mines.
Desert truffles can bring high prices in a country facing 13 years of war and a crushing economic crisis.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that at least 11 people collecting truffles were killed when Daesh fighters detonated a bomb near their vehicle in the desert of Raqqa province in north of Syria.
According to the Observatory the attackers opened fire after the blast.
Residents of the area are still looking for missing persons, said the monitoring group saying adding that the terrorists kidnapped three other hunters.
Daesh took control of large parts of Syria in 2014. A military operation led by United States defeated the group in March 2019 but its remnants continue to hide in the desert and carry out deadly attacks.
Even the group has claimed an attack Friday on a concert hall in the Russian capital, Moscow, that left 137 dead.
Earlier in March, 19 truffle collectors were killed in the Raqqa area of Syria, where Daesh extremists are present.
