IS ambush kills 4 in Damascus

Four Syrian regime fighters were killed east of the capital, a monitor said yesterday, in an ambush claimed by the Islamic State group.

The jihadists struck on Tuesday in a hilly area about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"There were four regime fighters killed, including three officers working in the Dumeir area," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

IS had a presence in the industrial area of Dumeir for several years but was eventually ousted by rival rebels, who lost the area to the government this year.

In a statement posted on its propaganda channels on Tuesday, IS said "soldiers of the caliphate" ambushed pro-government fighters, killing three of them.

The jihadist group once controlled swathes of territory straddling Syria and Iraq which it declared an Islamic "caliphate", but has since lost nearly all of that territory.

It is largely confined to the Badiya, the vast desert that stretches from the populous central region all the way to the eastern border with Iraq.

"The area attacked lies close to the Badiya but it is not clear if the attackers were hiding in sleeper cells there or came in from the desert," Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Last week, IS fighters reportedly based in the desert made a devastating foray into the southern province of Sweida, killing more than 250 people in coordinated suicide bombings, shootings and stabbings.