ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least five fighters loyal to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Syrian regime were killed in an Islamic State (ISIS) desert ambush in central Syria’s Hama province, a war monitor reported on Sunday. “Five members of the so-called ‘Syrian Resistance’ loyal to the Lebanese Hezbollah were killed and others were injured with varying degrees after falling into an ambush by members of the Islamic State in the Athriya area in the Hama desert,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor. The pro-Hezbollah fighters were killed by the jihadists while carrying out a “reconnaissance mission,” according to the Observatory. ISIS rose to power and seized control of 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 and several Iraqi provinces disputed between the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). On Sunday, three fighters of the pro-regime National Defense Forces (NDF) were injured in another ISIS attack in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province, the Observatory said. Earlier this month, three Syrian regime soldiers were killed in another ISIS ambush in Hama’s Athriya area. According to data from the Observatory, 439 Syrian regime soldiers and pro-Iran militants have been killed by ISIS militants in Syria since the start of the year. The attacks have also killed 55 civilians.
