IS overruns central Syrian town

On Sunday, Islamic State group jihadists seized a small town in Syria’s central Homs province with help from local rebels and advanced on a majority Christian village, a monitoring group said.

“The Islamic State group easily took control of the village of Maheen, southeast of Homs, after two suicide attacks,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Maheen lies 70 kilometres southeast of the government-controlled provincial capital Homs city, and 35 kilometres east of the Syrian-Lebanese border.

For the past two years, a ceasefire between rebel factions in the town and regime troops at surrounding checkpoints had governed Maheen. But on Sunday the rebel factions turned against the government fighters and joined ranks with IS jihadists, Abdel Rahman said.

IS launched its assault from the nearby Christian village of Al-Qaryatain, which it seized in August, he added. From Maheen, the jihadists pushed northeast toward the Christian-majority village of Sadad and the nearby highway running south from Homs to the Syrian capital.

A military source said clashes broke out between regime forces and jihadists around Sadad and lasted two hours before subsiding as the Syrian troops pulled out of the village.

The Syrian army, backed by Russian air cover, had been preparing for an imminent attack on the IS-held ancient city of Palmyra further east, but that the takeover of Maheen had set them back. IS controls eastern parts of Aleppo province and has sought to advance against other rebel groups in the province’s west.

Islamic State’s strongholds in Syria are in the north and east, but it has increased its territory in Homs province since taking over the historic city of Palmyra earlier this year, and then Qaryatain, 15 kilometres east of Maheen.

The assault brought Islamic State to within 20 km of the main highway that links Damascus to Homs and to cities further north.

The Observatory said at least 50 fighters on the government side were killed or wounded, and that clashes were raging further west on the outskirts of Sadad, a nearby town mostly inhabited by Christians, as Islamic State pressed its advance.

A statement from the IS confirmed the assault on Maheen, describing the town as “strategically important” and saying it had also seized weapons caches.