Shafaq News/ Sixteen civilians were killed and injured in an ambush carried out by ISIS members in the countryside of Raqqa Governorate, eastern Syria.

According to Sputnik, ISIS militants abducted six workers in collecting flint in Al-Tarb Al-Saghir village, southeast of Raqqa. Then they released five.

However, the sixth worker was executed, and the terrorists booby-trapped his body before discarding it.

After a gathering of civilians from the surrounding villages, the booby-trapped body exploded. Following the explosion, ISIS members opened fire on the crowd, resulting in six deaths and ten injuries, including two in critical condition.

According to the August report by UN experts, there are between 5,000 and 7,000 members of the ISIS group across its former stronghold in Syria and Iraq.

The experts said that during the first half of 2023, the threat posed by ISIS remained “mostly high in conflict zones and low in non-conflict areas.”

“The group has adapted its strategy, embedding itself with local populations, and has exercised caution in choosing battles that are likely to result in limited losses while rebuilding and recruiting from camps in the northeast of the Syrian Arab Republic and from vulnerable communities, including in neighboring countries,” the report said.