ISIS claims responsibility for attack on Syrian security forces, monitor says

ISIS claimed responsibility on Monday for an attack that killed four Syrian security personnel the day before, the SITE Intelligence Group reported.

“The soldiers of the Caliphate attacked a patrol for the apostate Syrian government on the Maaret al-Numan road yesterday with machine guns,” the group said according to a statement shared by SITE, which monitors extremist groups.

Syria’s interior ministry had said on Sunday that four members of its “road security department were killed, and a fifth was wounded, when their patrol was targeted while on duty” in the same area in Idlib province, without identifying the attackers.

ISIS once controlled swathes of Syria before its territorial defeat in 2019.

The group has claimed fewer attacks on Syrian and Kurdish forces since the fall of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in a lightning offensive by Syrian opposition forces last December.

It claimed its first attack on the new authorities on May 30, when it said it had planted an “explosive device” on a Syrian forces vehicle, killing one person and wounding three, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

Damascus often announces operations against ISIS, the latest being carried out alongside a US-led coalition to target “sleeper cells” in the Syrian desert following a Saturday attack that killed two US soldiers and a civilian translator in Palmyra.

Washington and Damascus blamed ISIS for the attack, though it has not claimed responsibility.

An interior ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity Sunday that three people had been arrested over their suspected involvement in that attack.

Interior ministry spokesman Noureddine al-Baba has said that the perpetrator was a member of the security forces who was due to be fired for his “extremist” views.

A Syrian security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the gunman had belonged to the security forces “for more than 10 months and was posted to several cities before being transferred to Palmyra.”