“A member of the Syrian Democratic Forces was killed as a result of being targeted by gunmen affiliated with ISIS cells … in the town of al-Bahra in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor.
It is the latest fatality amid an increase of ISIS attacks in Syria, particularly in areas under Kurdish control.
The Kurdish-led and US-backed SDF, who control northeast Syria (Rojava), fought the lion’s share of the battle against ISIS and arrested thousands of the terror group’s fighters along with their wives and children when they crushed ISIS territorially and took the group’s last stronghold in Syria in 2019.
On Monday, the Kurdish-led force foiled an attack by ISIS in Deir ez-Zor and killed two militants in the process. ISIS killed at least six SDF members in two separate attacks the day prior.
In late March, the SDF warned that ISIS still poses a threat to the world and the region as its defeat “requires dismantling its ideological breeding ground.”
“ISIS is still trying to recruit new terrorist elements, attempting to radicalize them into its ranks,” said the SDF, calling on the international community to “collaborate effectively” with its forces.
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 2017 and 2019 respectively, it still continues to pose serious security risks through hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions, especially across the vast expanses of the Syrian desert as well as several Iraqi provinces.
