According to analysts, ISIL (ISIS) is to blame for an attack on the Syrian army, which is the armed group’s first direct assault on government forces since Bashar al-Assad’s assassination.
ISIL claimed in a statement made late on Thursday that its fighters had planted an explosive device in southern Syria that struck a “vehicle of the apostate regime.”
ISIL, which views the new government in Damascus as illegitimate but has so far focused its activities against Kurdish forces in the north, appears to be at the forefront of the bombing.
Seven Syrian soldiers were reportedly killed or injured in the explosion on May 22 in Sweida province’s al-Safa desert region.
In a nearby area, ISIL claimed that a second bombing attack targeted Free Syrian Army fighters who were supported by the US. One fighter was killed, and three were hurt, according to ISIL.
The Free Syrian Army has not yet responded, and the Syrian government has not made any official comments.
After al-Assad was removed from power in December, members of the new Syrian government had ties to al-Qaeda, a rival of ISIL, but they abandoned it almost ten years ago.
However, ISIL has only recently claimed responsibility for attacks on the northeast’s Syrian Democratic Forces.
The first ISIL-claimed operation targeting the new Syrian military was the convoy explosion, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in the United Kingdom.
In Syria, ISIL was territorially defeated in 2019 but still maintains sleeper cells, particularly in the country’s central and eastern deserts.
Source: Aljazeera
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