IS kills 32 at refugee camp

At least 32 people were killed yesterday in an Islamic State group attack near a refugee camp on the Syrian side of the border with Iraq, a monitor said.

The attack came as the Kurdish-Arab alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces presses an offensive against IS in the town of Tabqa as part of an assault on the jihadist bastion Raqa.

The dawn IS attack hit a makeshift camp where some 300 families were waiting to cross into SDF-held territory in Hasakeh province, in northeastern Syria.

"At least five suicide attackers blew themselves up outside and inside a camp for Iraqi refugees and displaced Syrians in Hasakeh province," said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

Heavy clashes then erupted between the IS fighters and the SDF. "At least 30 people were wounded, and the death toll may rise because some people are in critical condition and others are still unaccounted for," the monitor said. 

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch said Monday Syrian government forces used deadly nerve gas in Khan Sheikhun and in three other recent attacks, describing a "clear pattern" of chemical weapons use that could amount to crimes against humanity.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces are also stepping up chlorine gas attacks and have begun using surface-fired rockets filled with chlorine in fighting near Damascus, the group said in a new report.

A commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards said yesterday Iran would maintain its support for the Syrian government despite the deaths of hundreds of its advisers and volunteers in the six-year civil war.

Shia Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah are the Syrian regime's most important military supporters after Russia in its battle against mainly Sunni rebels.

"We will send advisers in all fields and offer all help at our disposal so the resistance front doesn't break," General Mohammad Pakpour told the Fars news agency.