IS in Syrian desert killed 27 personnel loyal to Assad over last 2 days

Attacks by Islamic State group fighters deep in the Syrian Desert killed 27 Damascus troops and allied fighters over the past 48 hours, a monitoring group said on Saturday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead included four senior Syrian army officer.

The Amaq propaganda arm of IS, which lost the last vestige of its "caliphate" to Kurdish-led forces in eastern Syria last month but retains desert and mountain hideouts in both Syria and Iraq, said its fighters carried out the operation.