The Islamic State (IS) group announced that its members carried out 105 operations and attacks in areas where it is present around the world, including 34 operations in Syria within one week, resulting in the killing and injuring of 70 individuals.
According to the weekly edition of Al-Naba magazine affiliated with IS organization today, Friday, January 12, IS carried out 34 attacks, 22 of which were in Deir Ezzor governorate alone, four operations in Aleppo, three in Homs, and three in al-Hasakah, as well as two operations in Raqqa.
These operations resulted in the killing and injuring of 70 individuals, most of whom are from the Syrian regime forces following operations that targeted them in the desert of Palmyra in the eastern countryside of Homs.
IS stated yesterday, Thursday, that it carried out an attack against the regime forces using an explosive device, resulting in the killing and injuring of 30 individuals.
The Amaq agency affiliated with the Islamic State group (a closed newsroom on Telegram including journalists) quoted an unnamed military source regarding the same attack, stating that the IS organization’s fighters detonated an explosive device on January 9, targeting a bus carrying members and officers of the Syrian army in the desert of Palmyra in the eastern countryside of Homs.
The Russian Sputnik news agency stated last Tuesday that 16 soldiers and an officer from the Syrian regime forces were killed, and others were injured in simultaneous attacks by the Islamic State in the eastern Homs countryside, central Syria.
It further added that 14 soldiers from the regime forces were killed, and more than 19 others were wounded to varying degrees, as an initial toll, in an attack carried out by the IS organization on a sleeper bus carrying them in the “Station 3” area (T3) in the desert of Palmyra in the eastern countryside of Homs.
At that time, the operation coincided with the Islamic State’s announcement through its official Telegram account (a widely used app in Syria) that its elements targeted a military vehicle belonging to the regime forces west of the city of al-Sukhnah, east of Homs governorate, and targeted it with machine guns, resulting in the killing of five individuals and the burning of the vehicle.
Since the beginning of the current year, IS organization’s operations in Syria have multiplied, as it reached 32 operations during the first week of 2024, including areas that have not been targeted by the organization for over a year.
The pace of the organization’s operations in areas under the control of the Syrian regime in central Syria has not increased as it is today for over a year, as the organization relied on a strategy of targeting with explosive devices and ambushes by targeting military convoys for the regime forces in the region during the past year, but these operations used to take place at different and distant time intervals.
Despite the repeated security campaigns launched by the regime to combat the Islamic State organization in Syria, no difference has been made on the ground, even with the aerial support provided by Moscow for these operations and the ground support for Iranian militias in Syria.
The Islamic State organization claimed responsibility for targeting a military vehicle for the Syrian regime forces east of Homs.