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Beirut (AFP)
Thirty-seven members of the Syrian regime forces were killed on Wednesday in an attack on a bus in which they were traveling home with a permit, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, attributing the attack to ISIS.
The official Syrian news agency (SANA) reported that a bus was subjected to a “terrorist attack” in Deir Ezzor governorate (east), killing “25 citizens” and wounding 13 others.
The Syrian agency referred to the “terrorist cells” of the remnants of ISIS that spread through the area.
Despite its defeat in March 2019, ISIS continues to carry out periodic attacks in Syria, especially in the Badia region, which runs between the Homs (center) and Deir ez-Zor (east) governorates on the border with Iraq, where jihadist groups are active.
“It is one of the bloodiest attacks since the elimination of ISIS in March 2019,” Syrian Observatory director Rami Abdel-Rahman told France Press.
He added that the attack took place in the aforementioned province, near the town of Al-Shula, and noted that the jihadists “ambushed” the soldiers by firing bullets and detonating bombs.
In an updated number, Abd al-Rahman told AFP that 37 soldiers were killed, including eight officers, and about 10 wounded, some of them “critical.” He had previously reported the death of 30 soldiers.
The observatory reported that two other buses with soldiers managed to escape.
So far, ISIS has not claimed responsibility for the attack through its usual Telegram channels.
Battles in Badia
And after having declared in 2014 the establishment of a “caliphate” in the areas it controlled in Syria and Iraq, ISIS suffered successive losses in the two countries before its “caliphate” collapsed in March 2019 in Syria.
However, the organization resumed its attacks and engaged in a war of attrition against the Syrian army, fighters loyal to it, and the Kurdish forces that had Washington’s support to confront ISIS.
In April, 27 members of the regime forces were killed in an attack by the extremist organization in the vicinity of the desert city of Al-Sukhnah (central), which is controlled by the Syrian army.
In recent months, Badia has become the scene of regular battles between jihadists and Syrian forces supported by the Russian air force.
Since March 2019, these battles have killed more than 1,300 people, including Syrian soldiers and fighters loyal to Iran, and more than 600 jihadists, according to a balance sheet by the observatory.
However, the intensity of the fighting declined significantly in 2020, in light of a ceasefire that took effect in March in the northwest of the country, and efforts aimed at combating the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic.
After many areas fell out of the regime’s control at the beginning of the conflict, Damascus, with the support of Russia and Iran, managed to achieve successive victories on the ground over the past three years and now controls more than 70% of the country.
The areas that are still out of their control are Idlib (Northwest) which is controlled by the fighting factions, the areas controlled by the Turkish forces and their loyalist factions along the northern borders, and the areas of control of the forces. Kurds in the northeast of the country.
The conflict caused more than 387,000 deaths and the United Nations counted 6.7 million displaced Syrians and 5.5 million refugees.
© 2020 AFP
