Syria war monitor says IS killed six shepherds

Islamic State group militants killed six shepherds and stole their livestock Saturday in the Syrian Desert, a region long plagued by extremist attacks, a war monitor said.

The attack occurred south of Palmyra, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that monitors the conflict.

“Six shepherds were killed Saturday morning by fighters from Islamic State group cells,” the Observatory said in a statement.

The Islamic State group, which declared a self-styled caliphate across Syria and Iraq in 2014, has lost all its territorial holdings but continues to carry out deadly attacks, particularly in the vast desert stretching from Damascus to the Iraqi border.

While IS operations in recent years have mainly targeted Kurdish-led fighters or loyalists of former president Bashar al-Assad, the extremist group has intensified its activities following Assad’s overthrow.

The Observatory reported six IS attacks in the Syrian Desert since Assad fled into exile last week, killing 18 civilians and more than 50 former Assad troops who had abandoned their posts.

The latest violence comes as regional powers respond to the rapidly shifting dynamics in Syria. On a tour of the region, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Turkish officials it was “imperative” to prevent an IS resurgence following Assad’s ouster.

Blinken also pledged to work with Iraq to ensure IS “cannot re-emerge.” On Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan assured Blinken that Turkey would maintain its operations against IS in Syria, despite tensions with U.S.-backed Kurdish forces considered critical to containing the extremists.

IS militants continue to exploit the power vacuum left by Assad’s removal, underscoring the enduring threat posed by the extremist group despite its territorial defeat in 2019.