An attack by the Islamic State group (IS) killed at least 11 people hunting desert truffles in northern Syria on Sunday, a war monitor said, after the latest such incident.

Between February and April each year, hundreds of impoverished Syrians risk their lives to forage for the delicacy in the vast Syrian desert – a known hideout for jihadists that is also littered with mines.

Desert truffles can fetch high prices in a country battered by 13 years of war and a crushing economic crisis.

"At least 11 people collecting truffles were killed when IS fighters detonated a bomb as their car passed in the desert of Raqa province in northern Syria," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

After the blast, the attackers opened fire, the Observatory added.

Residents were still searching for missing persons, said the Britain-based monitoring group with a network of sources inside Syria, noting that the jihadists kidnapped three other hunters.

IS took control of large swathes of Syria in 2014. A military campaign backed by a United States-led coalition led to the group's territorial defeat in March 2019 but remnants continue to hide in the desert and launch deadly attacks.

The global jihadist group's reach spans beyond Syria, with IS claiming an attack Friday on a concert hall in the Russian capital, Moscow, that left 137 dead.

Earlier in March, 19 truffle collectors were killed in an area of Syria's Raqa, where IS extremists are present, when their vehicle hit a mine, the Observatory said at the time.

At least 34 people, including two babies were killed when a contraband fuel depot exploded into flames in southern Benin near the border with Nigeria on Saturday.

According to Beninese Interior Minister Alassane Seidou, “a serious fire occurred in the town of Seme Podji. Another 20 people were seriously wounded in the incident.”

"I can't really give you the cause of the fire, but there is a large gasoline warehouse here and cars, tricycles and motorcycles come from morning to evening,” he added.

Nigeria is a main oil and gas producer where fuel smuggling is very common along its borders, particularly when the government maintains a subsidy to keep fuel prices low.

The majority of the victims were burnt and they could not be not be identified.

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