The Islamic State, ISIS, has claimed responsibility for its first attack against the forces of the new Syrian authorities since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, according to an NGO and the SITE Intelligence Group.
This is the first attack claimed by ISIS against the new Syrian government, said SITE, an organisation specialising in monitoring Islamist websites.
In a statement reported by SITE, the Islamist group claimed on Thursday to have detonated an ‘explosive device’ against a Syrian armed forces vehicle in the southern province of Sweida.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that one man was killed and three members of the Syrian army’s 70th division were wounded when their patrol was hit by a remotely detonated landmine on Wednesday. The man killed was accompanying Syrian government forces in this desert area, according to the NGO.
ISIS, which had managed to control a large area of Syria and Iraq, was defeated in Syria in 2019 by Kurdish forces with the support of an international coalition. However, it still has cells that continue to attack Kurdish-led forces in north-eastern Syria.
On Monday, Syrian authorities announced that they had dismantled a heavily armed ISIS cell that was preparing to carry out attacks in a region near Damascus.
Ten days earlier, security forces said they had arrested several members of an ISIS cell in Aleppo, the country’s second largest city. One member of the security forces and three jihadists were killed in that operation.
US President Donald Trump, who met with Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al-Shareh, on 14 May in Saudi Arabia, has called on him to help the United States prevent a resurgence of ISIS.
