Bus attack kills 10 oil workers in Syria’s Deir Ezzor

At least 10 oil workers were killed and one was injured in an attack that targeted a bus carrying them in Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor countryside, state news agency SANA said on Thursday.

“Ten workers at the Al-Kharata oil field were martyred and another was wounded in a terrorist attack on a bus transporting them back from work,” according to SANA without elaborating.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible.

But ISIS terrorist group has regularly claimed operations in the oil-rich province that was once a part of its sprawling proto-state straddling Syria and Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an explosive device was used in the bus attack in an area of Deir Ezzor where “ISIS sleeper cells are active”

Al-Kharata oil field lies 20 kilometers (12 miles) southwest of Deir Ezzor city, said the Observatory.

Regime forces recaptured it in 2017 after ISIS fighters were expelled from the area, the Observatory said.

(Reuters)