Fighting in southern Syria following bombing kills 17: War monitor | Syria’s War News [Video]

A war monitor has said at least 17 people were killed in southern Syria’s Deraa province in violence triggered by an explosion a day earlier that killed a group of children.

Deraa was the cradle of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s, rule but it returned to government control in 2018 under a ceasefire deal backed by Russia.

The province has since been plagued by violence, with frequent clashes and precarious living conditions.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Sunday that an armed group led by a figure who previously worked for a Syrian state security agency had been accused by a rival group of planting an explosive device that went off on Saturday in the city of al-Sanamayn, killing eight children.

On Sunday, a rival armed group led by a former member of ISIL (ISIS) who now works for military intelligence stormed part of al-Sanamayn and the two groups began clashing, the monitor said.

The battle left 17 dead, …