CAIRO — The death toll from an attack blamed on the Islamic State group in central Syria has risen to at least 53, most of them civilians, state media reported on Saturday.

"Fifty-three citizens who were truffle hunting were killed during an attack by the terrorists of IS to the southwest of the town of Al-Sokhna" in the desert east of Homs, state television said.

The director of Palmyra hospital, Walid Audi, said those killed were 46 civilians and seven soldiers.

Audi told the pro-government radio station Sham FM that their bodies had "been brought to the hospital after the ambush" that targeted dozens.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the attack, which it said was carried out by jihadists on motorcycles who opened fire on the truffle hunters.

The jihadist group did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack on its usual channels.

The attack on Friday was the deadliest by the extremist group this year, the observatory said.

The observatory, which tracks Syria's conflict, said the IS attackers took advantage of the Feb 6 earthquakes that hit Turkiye and Syria killing tens of thousands of people to carry out their deadly attack. The attention in Syria has been mostly focused on the earthquake over the past two weeks.

Despite the IS defeat in Syria in March 2019, it has sleeper cells that still conduct attacks around Syria and Iraq.

Many people, including women and children, have been targeted in recent years while truffle hunting in central, northeastern and eastern areas of Syria.

Sixteen people, mostly civilians, were killed on Saturday in a similar attack targeting foragers in the same area, said the observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources on the ground in Syria.

The observatory said IS was taking advantage of the annual harvest of desert truffles, which generally runs from February to April, to carry out attacks in remote locations.

The United Nations has said that despite setbacks, the jihadist group has "maintained its ability to launch attacks at a steady pace". It estimates the jihadist group maintains between 6,000 and 10,000 fighters inside Iraq and Syria.