MASSACRE: Isis Kill Women and Children While Trying to Seize East Hama from the Syrian Government

The Islamic State group attacked several government-held villages in central Syria on Thursday, capturing at least one of them in violence that left 52 people dead including more than two dozen women and children, some of whom were beheaded, as well as Syrian troops, state media, medical officials and an opposition monitoring group said.



The attack in the central Hama province targeted villages where most residents belong to the Ismaili branch of Shiite Islam, raising fears the extremists might massacre them, as they have in other minority communities in Syria and Iraq.



The villages are located near the town of Salamiyeh and the highway that links the capital, Damascus, to the northern city of Aleppo, but state media said traffic was not affected.



The attacks come as government forces are on the offensive against the extremists in other parts of Syria, mostly in the northern province of Aleppo and the central Homs region and to the east. U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led forces are meanwhile marching toward the extremists' de-facto capital of Raqqa, in northern Syria.



State news agency SANA said militants were able to storm homes in the southern part of the Aqareb al-Safi village, adding that government forces repelled them, pushing them back toward the desert.



The head of the National Hospital in Salamiyeh, Dr. Noufal Safar, said the hospital received 52 bodies, including 11 women and 17 children. He said some of them were beheaded and others had their limbs amputated.



"They were brought with all forms of deformations but most of them appear to have died as a result of gunfire," Safar said by telephone. He added that most of the dead and wounded were brought by ambulances.