Dozens of Sufi sites destroyed in Syria: Observatory

Takfiri militants have demolished several Sufi shrines in Syria’s eastern province of Deir al-Zour, says a UK-based monitoring group.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday that dozens of shrines, tombs, and Shia mosques had been destroyed.

Among the latest destructions were two shrines and two tombs belonging to Sufi Muslims.

The Observatory also said at least eight terrorists were killed and 40 others wounded in an airstrike by the Syrian army against a training camp in the western side of the province.

The ISIL Takfiris are fighting to bring the province under full control so as to connect it to the city of Raqqa, their stronghold in the north.

The ISIL controls large swathes of Syria’s northern territory. The group sent its members into neighboring Iraq in June and seized large parts of land there in a lightning advance.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011 with ISIL Takfiri terrorists currently controlling parts of it mostly in the east.

The Western powers and their regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — are reportedly supporting the militants operating inside Syria.

More than 191,000 people have been killed in over three years of fighting in the war-ravaged country, says the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), calling the figure a probable “underestimate of the real total number of people killed.”