At least 11 truffle pickers were killed on Sunday in an attack attributed to the Islamic State (IS) group in the Syrian desert. IS fighters set off a mine as their vehicle passed before opening fire on them in the desert expanses of Raqqa province in northern Syria.
Three other people, who also went looking for these highly prized mushrooms, were kidnapped by the jihadists. ISIS, which took control of entire swaths of the country from 2014, was territorially defeated in March 2019 by an international anti-jihadist coalition.