Several people were killed and others injured after an explosive device detonated near a bus carrying oil facility guards in Syria’s Deir el-Zor, Syrian media reported on Thursday.
Sources told Al Arabiya that five were killed and 13 others were injured in the attack.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the perpetrators were “likely affiliated with an ISIS group cell.”
ISIS extremists, once in control of large swathes of Iraq and Syria, were territorially defeated in Syria in 2019 in a battle spearheaded by the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with support from an international coalition.
The extremists still maintain a presence, particularly in Syria’s vast desert, launching attacks mostly on Kurdish-controlled areas in the country’s northeast.
During Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011, IS carried out similar attacks on buses targeting the forces of former ruler Bashar al-Assad.
Since the new authorities took power after al-Assad’s December ouster, extremist attacks on government-controlled areas have been scarce.
In May, ISIS claimed its first attack on the new forces, with the Observatory saying one member of Syrian army personnel was killed and three others wounded.
The following month, authorities accused ISIS of being behind a deadly suicide attack in a Damascus church that killed 25 people, though the group never claimed responsibility.
AFP
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