Militant attack on bus kills 3, wounds 21 in eastern Syria

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Militants attacked a civilian bus in eastern Syria on Thursday, killing three people and wounding 21, Syrian state TV reported.

The TV said the bus was attacked near a village in a desert area of the province of Deir el-Zour, which borders Iraq. It did not say whether the bus was attacked with machinegun fire, a missile or a roadside bomb.

The report gave no further details and there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Large parts of Deir el-Zour were once controlled by the extremist Islamic State group, which in 2014 proclaimed a so-called “caliphate” in a third of both Iraq and Syria.

In the past, Syrian authorities have blamed such attacks on IS and its sleeper cells, which have been active in eastern and central Syria, despite IS militants losing areas they once controlled in 2019.