ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least five members of a pro-Syrian regime militia were killed in an Islamic State (ISIS) attack in central Homs province, a conflict monitor reported on Saturday.
“Armed men from Islamic State cells launched a surprise attack targeting a group of gunmen loyal to the regime and members of the Russian-backed al-Quds Brigade … which resulted in five members dead,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.
ISIS fighters launched the assault while pro-regime forces were carrying out a combing operation in the eastern countryside of Homs, the monitor said.
This is the latest in a string of ISIS attacks in Syria, which have been on the rise recently, especially in the vast expanses of its eastern desert where the group carries out surprise attacks amid a security vacuum.
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 2019, it still continues to pose serious security risks through hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions, especially across the Syrian desert as well as several Iraqi provinces.
