“An officer of the [Syrian] regime forces, along with two of his companions, were killed in a surprise attack by ISIS cells during a combing operation in the Palmyra desert in the eastern countryside of Homs,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.
It is the latest ISIS attack amid a large-scale sweeping operation by Damascus in areas where the extremist group remains active. Attacks by ISIS in Syria have been on the rise recently, especially in the vast expanses of its eastern and northern deserts 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.
On Saturday, five members of a pro-Syrian regime militia were killed in an ISIS attack in Homs.
