CAIRO: Daesh militants killed four Syrian government security personnel in northern Syria on Monday, the Syrian state news agency reported, in what would be the group’s deadliest attack on government forces since the ouster of President Bashar Assad.
The assault on a checkpoint west of Raqqa city underlined an escalation in attacks by the jihadist group against President Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s government, two days after the jihadist group declared “a new phase of operations” against it. Islamic State issued no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday’s attack. On Saturday, the group claimed two attacks targeting Syrian army personnel in northern and eastern Syria, in which a Syrian soldier and a civilian were killed.
The Syrian state news agency said forces foiled Monday’s attack and killed one of the militants. It quoted a security source as saying Islamic State carried out the attack. Separately, one soldier was killed after unknown gunmen attacked the army headquarters in the city of Mayadin in Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, the Syrian state news agency reported on the early hours of Tuesday.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which occurred in the same city where the Islamic State carried out an attack days earlier.
