The Islamic State group 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 carried out by the jihadists since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December.
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, a Druze-majority area that borders Jordan.
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, of unclear funding, 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.
The man killed was accompanying the Syrian government forces in the desert area, according to the Observatory.
Islamic State, which once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq, is opposed to the new authority in Damascus led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was once the head of al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria and fought battles against ISIS.
Over the past several months, ISIS has claimed responsibility for attacks against the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast.
ISIS was defeated in Syria in March 2019 when SDF fighters captured the last sliver of land that the extremists controlled. Since then, its sleeper cells have carried out deadly attacks, mainly in eastern and northeast Syria.
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 Muslim shrine south of Damascus.
This week, Syrian authorities said they arrested members of an Islamic State cell near Damascus, accusing them of preparing attacks.
Another government operation in the northern city of Aleppo this month saw the death of one security forces officer and three ISIS members.
During a meeting with al-Sharaa in Riyadh this month, US President Donald Trump called on him to help the US prevent the resurgence of ISIS, according to the White House.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also said in a statement after the meeting that Trump urged Sharaa to diplomatically recognize Israel and “tell all foreign terrorists to leave Syria.”
Trump also said that Washington would work on lifting crippling economic sanctions imposed on Damascus since the days of Assad, and the US has begun to roll them back.
On Thursday, the long-shuttered US ambassador’s residence in Damascus was re-opened, and US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack — who has been appointed special envoy to Syria — proposed a “non-aggression agreementâ€� between Israel and Syria.
Reuters reported earlier this week that Israel and Syria are in direct contact and have, in recent weeks, held face-to-face meetings aimed at calming tensions and preventing conflict in the border region.