Syrian government troops Saturday recaptured the Shaar gas field in Homs province from the Islamic State, a week after the jihadists seized it, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

 

"Since this morning, there has been fighting around the Al-Shaar field between regime forces and the IS. The army has succeeded in ejecting the jihadists, and it now controls the site and surrounding hills," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse.

 

The powerful jihadist group, which operates in Syria and Iraq, killed around 300 members of the Syrian security forces in the battle for the key facility. Some of them were executed after being captured.