Sat 09 January 2021:
Islamic State group jihadists killed at least seven regime loyalists in eastern Syria on Saturday (Jan 9), .
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “Seven members of the National Defence Forces, a pro-regime militia, were killed in clashes with an IS sleeper cell” in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.
IS gunmen wounded several other militia fighters, meaning the death toll may climb, it added.
The attack came as the militia fighters were sweeping the town of Al-Shola for jihadist remnants, according to the monitor.
The region, near the border with Iraq, was formerly a stronghold of the jihadist group.
IS overran large parts of Syria and Iraq and proclaimed a cross-border “caliphate” in 2014, before multiple offensives in the two countries led to its territorial defeat.
The group was overcome in Syria in March last year, but sleeper cells continue to launch attacks namely in the vast desert that stretches from the central province of Homs to Deir Ezzor and the border with Iraq.
The ambush late last Sunday resulted in the deaths of eight soldiers, four allied fighters and three civilians, the Observatory said.
Last month, IS said it was behind a December 30 bus ambush in Deir Ezzor province, which killed at least 37 Syrian soldiers.
Western intelligence sources say there has been a rise in recent months of ambushes and hit-and-run attacks by remnants of ISIS militants who take shelter in caves in the mainly rugged sparsely Syrian Badia.
They also say in the last few months, Arab Sunni tribes who inhabit the area have been angered by executions by Iranian Shia militias operating in the area of dozens of Arab nomads suspected of affiliation to ISIS militants.
Analyst Aymenn al-Tamimi said the latest ambushes reflected the difficulty in stamping out sleeper cells in such a broad region.
“The Syrian government forces and its allies have to cover a very large, sparsely populated area that is easy for ISIS to survive in and conduct attacks,” he said.
More than 387,000 people have been killed and millions forced from their homes since Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011.
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