AP, Beirut :Syria’s government said Sunday that Islamic State militants slaughtered 300 people in an “appalling massacre” committed in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour in daylong attacks that saw the extremists make significant advances in the contested region.The state-run SANA news agency said that most of those killed in Saturday’s attacks were elderly people, women and children while opposition activists said many of the victims were Syrian soldiers and pro-government militiamen and their families.The killings are some of the worst carried out by the extremist group, which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq and has killed thousands of people in both countries.The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which documents all sides of the Syria conflict through activists on the ground, said late Saturday that at least 135 people were killed. It said around 80 of them were soldiers and pro-government militiamen and the rest civilians.It added that many of them were shot dead or beheaded.The Islamic State group controls most of Deir el-Zour province and much of the capital with the same name, while the government controls several districts in the northern part of the city and the adjacent military airport. Most of the casualties took place in the area of Baghaliyeh near the city.The Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV, which is close to the Syrian government, also reported a massacre and said IS killed dozens of people, including women and children, and threw their bodies in the Euphrates River. It said the group took more than 400 civilians hostage.The reports could not be independently confirmed.The IS-affiliated Aamaq news agency had reported a large-scale multi-pronged attack on Deir el-Zour that began with a suicide bombing. On Sunday, it reported that the group expanded its control of areas west and northwest of Deir el-Zour, adding that around 110 Syrian government forces were killed and at least five others captured.It said the group seized control of Baghaliyeh and surrounding areas during the fighting.Regime troops were locked in fierce clashes with IS in Aleppo province, with at least 16 jihadists killed after a failed attack on a government position near the town of Al-Bab, the monitor said.State television also reported that regime forces had repelled an assault in the town.The Observatory said heavy fighting was ongoing Saturday in the area, with Russian warplanes carrying out strikes in the region between the regime-held Kweyris air base and Al-Bab.The regime has advanced towards the town, an IS bastion, in recent days, and is now within 10 kilometres (six miles) of it, said the Observatory.State television also reported that regime forces had repelled an assault in the town.The Observatory said heavy fighting was ongoing Saturday in the area, with Russian warplanes carrying out strikes in the region between the regime-held Kweyris air base and Al-Bab.The regime has advanced towards the town, an IS bastion, in recent days, and is now within 10 kilometres (six miles) of it, said the Observatory.That is the closest regime forces have come to Al-Bab since 2012.Located some 30 kilometres south of the Turkish border, Al-Bab fell into rebel hands in July 2012, and IS jihadists captured it in late 2013.The fighting in Al-Bab is just one of up to seven battlefronts on which regime forces are seeking to advance in Aleppo province, capitalising on a Russian air campaign that began on September 30.The battles are intended in part to cut rebel supply lines into Aleppo city, the provincial capital and Syria’s second city.Aleppo itself is divided and regime forces are now hoping to effectively encircle the opposition-held east.In addition to cutting rebel access to eastern Aleppo city, the regime is hoping to sever areas controlled by IS in the province from its territory in neighbouring Raqa, Abdel Rahman said.Raqa, the self-declared capital of IS, has come under frequent air strikes by the US-led coalition, the Syrian air force and Russian warplanes.On Saturday at least 16 people, including civilians, were killed in air strikes and 30 others were wounded, said Abdel Rahman.He said eight strikes hit the city and its surroundings but did not specify who carried them out.British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, in comments reported Saturday, said some 600 Britons have been stopped from going to Syria to join IS and other jihadist groups.Hammond said these interceptions as well as air strikes were placing extra strain on IS in its Raqa headquarters.”There is evidence (IS) is finding it difficult to recruit to the brigades in Raqa because of the high attrition rate of foreign fighters,” he said, according to The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph newspapers.Syria’s war has killed more than 260,000 people and forced millions to flee their homes.Meanwhile, ISIS may be losing ground in its strongholds of Iraq and Syria but as the attack in Indonesia this month showed, the jihadists are rallying other groups under their banner, analysts say.In most cases, these groups have no direct contact with the leadership of ISIS’s self-proclaimed caliphate, but the group is happy to claim responsibility for the blood spilled in its name, the experts say.”From the start, Islamic State (ISIS) has vowed to take its fight globally, but until recently it has been focused on managing its caliphate in Iraq and Syria,” said Michael Kugelman, of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
