Jihadists kill 50 Syria troops in ambush

Jihadists from the Islamic State group killed at least 50 Syrian soldiers in an ambush on Friday, summarily executing most of them after their capture, a monitoring group said. The assault in Raqa province, the IS jihadists’ Euphrates valley stronghold, came amid their fiercest assault yet on Damascus-held territory. The deaths added to 74 already killed in the offensive across the north and northeast, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. ‘At least 50 soldiers were ambushed, some of them were killed in fighting but most of them were beheaded,’ director Rami Abdel Rahman said. IS militants claimed the toll was as high as 75, according to AFP.