AMMAN: At least nine Syrian army soldiers were killed on Sunday in an ambush on their bus on a main highway in the central Syrian desert in the second such incident in less than a week by suspected Islamic State militants, residents and defectors said.
Syrian state media earlier said six people, without identifying them as soldiers, were killed near Wadi al Azeeb in the western part of the Syrian desert known as the Badia, east of the city of Hama, when their bus was targeted while on the road.
Russian jets flying from a major air base in the area at high altitudes bombed its vicinity in the surprise attack that left at least twenty two soldiers injured, several seriously, according to two military defectors in touch with their coordinates on the ground.
State media said last Wednesday twenty-eight people were killed in a similar “terrorist” attack on a bus along a main highway in Deir al-Zor province that borders Iraq.
Pro-Syrian army supporters later published on social media…
