“The head of al-Azba and Marat local council in the northern countryside of Deir ez-Zor was killed after being directly targeted by unknown gunmen believed to be affiliated with ISIS cells on the main street of al-Azba,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor.
The ambush, which also injured a woman and a child, took place in northern Deir ez-Zor, controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
It is the latest in a spate of ISIS attacks in Syria, particularly from the desert regions where jihadist cells maintain a presence.
Control of Deir ez-Zor province, which borders Iraq, is split between the SDF and the Iran-backed Syrian regime. It is also home to many of the country’s key oilfields, such as Omar and Conoco, which the global coalition helps the SDF to control.
ISIS rose to power and seized swathes of Iraqi and Syrian land in a brazen offensive in 2014, declaring a so-called “caliphate.”
While the group was declared territorially defeated in 2017 and 2019, respectively, it still continues to pose serious security risks through hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions, especially across the vast expanses of the Syrian desert as well as several Iraqi provinces.
