IS overruns town in central Syria

Islamic State group jihadists seized a small town in
Syria’s central Homs province Sunday with help
from local rebels and advanced on a majority
Christian village, a monitoring group said.
“The Islamic State group easily took control of the
village of Maheen, southeast of Homs, after two
suicide attacks,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director
of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Maheen lies 70 kilometres (43 miles) southeast of
the government-controlled provincial capital Homs
city, and 35 kilometres east of the Syrian-Lebanese
border.
For the past two years, a ceasefire between rebel
factions in the town and regime troops at
surrounding checkpoints had governed Maheen.
But on Sunday the rebel factions turned against the
government fighters and joined ranks with IS
jihadists, Abdel Rahman said.
IS launched its assault from the nearby Christian
village of Al-Qaryatain, which it seized in August,
he added.
From Maheen, the jihadists pushed northeast
toward the Christian-majority village of Sadad and
the nearby highway running south from Homs to
the Syrian capital.
A military source said clashes broke out between
regime forces and jihadists around Sadad and
lasted two hours before subsiding as the Syrian
troops pulled out of the village.
The Syrian army, backed by Russian air cover, had
been preparing for an imminent attack on the IS-
held ancient city of Palmyra further east, but that
the takeover of Maheen had set them back.
Also on Sunday, at least 18 IS fighters were killed
in the town of Harbil, north of Syria’s second city
Aleppo, in clashes with other rebel groups and air
strikes by a US-led coalition, Abdel Rahman said.
IS controls eastern parts of Aleppo province and
has sought to advance against other rebel groups
in the province’s west.