ISIS took responsibility for a fatal strike on Syrian regime troops in what analysts attribute to be the group’s first direct attack on the Syrian army since President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.
In a statement issued on Thursday, ISIS announced that its fighters had left behind an explosive device that hit a “vehicle of the apostate regime” in southern Syria’s Sweida province. The bombing, which occurred on May 22 in the al-Safa desert, reportedly left or wounded seven Syrian soldiers.
This attack marks a significant escalation by the militant group, which to date had concentrated its activities mainly against Kurdish-led groups in the north. Observers indicate the change could portend ISIS’s desire to reaffirm its presence in the context of Syria’s fractured power dynamics and continued instability.
Another bombing, also attributed to ISIS this week, hit fighters in the same area of the Kurdish-led Free Syrian Army, supported by the United States. That bombing was said to have killed one person and injured three in the group’s ranks.
Neither the Syrian regime nor the Free Syrian Army has made any official statement regarding the incidents. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, however, confirmed that the Sweida bombing was the first ISIS-claimed attack aimed at the post-Assad Syrian military.
Even as ISIS was officially defeated territorially in Syria in 2019, still existing remnants of the organization maintain activity in central and eastern desert areas, keeping sleeper cells in place to carry out occasional but lethal attacks.
Witnesses caution that these latest strikes could represent a strategic shift by ISIS as it tries to take advantage of changing allegiances and the deteriorating grip of the new Syrian administration. Several of the present leaders had past connections with al-Qaeda a long-standing ISIS competitor—but broke those ties close to a decade ago.
Security analysts warn that these events can be the start of a wider insurgent war.