Seven members of the National Defense Forces, a pro-regime militia, were killed “as a result of clashes with cells affiliated with the Islamic State in the area of al-Shula in western Deir ez-Zor desert, during a combing operation,” stated the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Others were injured, some seriously, the Observatory said, adding the death toll may climb.
The al-Shula area was the site of a deadly ambush on December 30 when at least 25 people were killed. The Observatory said the casualties were military personnel, but Syrian state media said they were civilians. ISIS claimed responsibility.
On January 3, at least nine people, seven regime soldiers and two civilians, were killed in an ISIS attack on a bus and cars on the Damascus-Raqqa highway in Hama province, according to the Observatory.
The remote desert areas of eastern Syria were an ISIS stronghold and the militants have kept a presence in the area, killing at least 1,170 regime soldiers and loyalists since the group’s territorial defeat in Syria in late March 2019, the Observatory reported.
ISIS has maintained a “low-level insurgency in Iraq and Syria,” the Pentagon stated in a report covering July to September 2020 and published in November. During this time in Syria, ISIS carried out more “’high quality attacks’ in regime-held areas, including complex ambushes and targeted assassinations.”
“ISIS took advantage of the permissive environment created by sparsely populated desert terrain and lack of an effective counterterrorism campaign by pro-regime forces,” the report stated.
The group could regain control of territory in Syria and Iraq “without sustained [counterterrorism] pressure… in a relatively short period of time,” said General Kenneth McKenzie, US CENTCOM commander.
