Damascus: A land mine left by the Islamic State group struck a van packed with workers in eastern Syria on Sunday, killing more than 20 of them in Syria.

 News agency SANA said, citing local police, “The ordnance left behind by the Islamic State group in the town of Salamiyeh killed farmworkers who were heading to a region in the Hama province to pick truffles.”

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SANA said the explosion on Sunday morning near the central town of Salamiyeh was caused by explosives left behind by the militants when they controlled the area. A mine exploded in a nearby area earlier this month, killing seven people.

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Earlier,  on February 8 too a landmine that had been planted by IS in rural Hama exploded killing seven civilians. IS had a presence in Hama's countryside before the Syrian army drove the jihadists from the area in 2017. Before withdrawing they had planted mines in the area and rigged buildings with explosives, a tactic they have used in other areas as well. More than four years after IS overran large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared a "caliphate", the jihadist group has lost one territory after another and are left with only a tiny patch in the village of Baghouz near the border of Iraq.