Latest news with #SouthernSyria
Asharq Al-Awsat
3 days ago
- General
- Asharq Al-Awsat
ISIS Claims 1st Attack on Syrian Government Forces Since Assad's Fall
ISIS has claimed responsibility for two attacks in southern Syria, including one on government forces that an opposition war monitor described as the first on the Syrian army to be adopted by the extremists since the fall of Bashar Assad. In two separate statements issued late Thursday, ISIS said that in the first attack, a bomb was detonated targeting a 'vehicle of the apostate regime,' leaving seven soldiers dead or wounded. It said the attack occurred 'last Thursday,' or May 22, in the al-Safa area in the desert of the southern province of Sweida. ISIS said that the second attack occurred this week in a nearby area during which a bomb targeted members of the US-backed Free Syrian Army, claiming that it killed one fighter and wounded three. There was no comment from the government on the claim of the attack and a spokesperson for the Free Syrian Army didn't immediately respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the attack on government forces killed one civilian and wounded three soldiers, describing it as the first such attack to be claimed by ISIS against Syrian forces since the fall of the 54-year Assad family's rule in December. In January, state media reported that intelligence officials in Syria's post-Assad government thwarted a plan by ISIS to set off a bomb at a Shiite shrine south of Damascus.
Washington Post
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
As Syria's Druze minority reels from violence, Israel pursues an opening
SWEIDA, Syria — Nervous Druze militiamen at checkpoints in southern Syria craned their necks in recent days to look inside stopped vehicles, sizing up drivers and bracing for new threats. Clashes with pro-government fighters have killed dozens in this part of the country over the past few weeks. And the violence, coming on top of sectarian bloodletting elsewhere in Syria earlier this year, has provoked such fear among members of the Druze religious group that dominates Sweida province that some say they are now looking for help from an unlikely direction: Israel.
