Daesh terror attacks leave over 220 dead in southern Syria

Daesh has claimed responsibility for the series of suicide bombings and attacks that sparked fighting between local armed groups in southern Syria's Sweida. 

The attacks in Syria by the terror group have killed over 220 people, mostly pro-regime fighters, in some of the deadliest attacks in months, a war monitor said on Wednesday.

"Three bombers with explosive belts targeted Sweida city alone, while the other blasts hit villages to the north and east," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based SOHR, said the group then followed up with further attacks, seizing three of the seven villages it had targeted.

He said 26 pro-regime fighters had been killed and more than 30 people wounded in the attack on populated areas close to Sweida city.

Syria's official news agency SANA confirmed the attack had killed and wounded people in the provincial capital.

Regime television also reported casualties in villages to the north and east, adding that the army was "targeting positions of the Daesh terrorist group in Sweida province's eastern countryside."

Abdel Rahman said unidentified warplanes were also targeting Daesh fighters in the area.

Despite pro-regime forces ousting the group from urban centres in eastern Syria last year, surprise raids in recent months have killed dozens of regime and allied fighters.

The regime of leader Bashar al Assad has in recent weeks ousted rebels from a majority of the country's south, part of which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The regime controls almost all of Sweida province, but Daesh retains a presence in desert areas of its north and east.

It is now closing in on a patch of territory in nearby Daraa province held by the militant group Jaish Khaled bin al Walid, which has pledged allegiance to Daesh.

The city of Sweida has largely been spared most of the violence that Syrian cities have witnessed in the years since the conflict started in 2011.

The rare attacks in Sweida come amid a government offensive elsewhere in the country's south. Government forces are battling the Daesh-linked group near the frontier with Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and near the border with Jordan. The group also has a small presence on the eastern edge of Sweida province.

The group, which has around 1,000 fighters in the region, has been the target of an intense campaign of bombing by Russian and Syrian regime jets in recent days.

Hayat Tahrir al Sham, a group made up mostly of ex-members of the former Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, also has a few hundred men in the south.

A source within the Syrian regime forces accused Israel on Tuesday of firing at one of its aircraft as it carried out operations against militants in southern Syria.

Israel's army earlier said it had shot down a Syrian regime fighter jet that had infiltrated Israeli airspace, risking another escalation in the sensitive border zone.

The Observatory later said air operations had dramatically decreased following the incident.

The Damascus regime has long accused Israel of backing Daesh and other opposition factions.

Clashes raged on Tuesday between regime troops and Daesh terrorists on the northern edges of the border town of Saida, the Observatory said.