The increase in attacks carried out by the Islamic State (IS) organization in Syria is slow but tangible. Monday evening, August 7, roadblocks of pro-regime forces located in the east of Rakka province, whose eponymous city was the “capital” of the jihadist group, were targeted by an ambush. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), ten soldiers were killed, the clashes lasted several hours and the attackers only withdrew after setting fire to the military positions. A few days earlier, the 1er August, a convoy of tankers carrying fuel was targeted in the desert of the Hama region: five soldiers and two drivers were killed.
These two attacks confirm the trend recorded since the beginning of the year: the raids of the IS, which had been declared defeated in Syria in 2019, after the battle of Baghouz, remain intermittent, but they settle in the long term in the center and northeast of the country. They target civilians, like the sand truffle collectors killed by the dozens in the desert between February and April, as well as pro-regime soldiers and militiamen or fighters from the Kurdish-led forces.
More recently, jihadist operations have also targeted urban areas, such as Sayyida Zeinab, south of Damascus: this is both the location of an important Shiite mausoleum, a stronghold of pro-Iranian forces involved in the war in Syria alongside the regime, and a popular suburb. Two attacks, a few days apart, at the end of July, which left six dead and injured, were claimed by IS. In June, an explosion targeting a senior officer in Homs was attributed to the jihadist group, the first urban attack since 2017, according to the International Crisis Group.
Young recruits
Monday’s clashes put pro-regime forces in the eastern region of Rakka on high alert, the OSDH said. Media close to the government, for their part, downplayed the scale of the attack. At any rate, “in comparison with the violence of the conflict on the front lines or the strikes [rebelles] on Damascus a few years ago, the current attacks carried out by IS remain manageable for the regimesays Aron Lund, expert at the Century Foundation think tank. They are a source of tension but they do not threaten its stability. »
After being fought by Kurdish forces, who control the majority of northeastern Syria, and by the international coalition, but also hunted down by Russian and Syrian strikes, IS has however regained a foothold in the central desert. Gregory Waters, a researcher at the Middle East Institute, identifies several reasons behind this renewed activity: “The airstrikes carried out by Moscow or Damascus have diminished, the cause is unknown. Is it related to the fuel supply, or a lack of spare parts, because of the war in Ukraine? But these strikes were a repellent for a group with limited resources and manpower today. »
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