DAMASCUS, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Islamic State 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 al-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 said on Tuesday that its militants killed and wounded a number of Syrian government forces in Raqqa. 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.
The militant group also claimed responsibility on Tuesday for a separate attack on an army headquarters in the city of Mayadin in Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria that killed one soldier.
The group had carried out an attack in the same city days earlier.
The Syrian government joined the U.S.-led coalition to combat Islamic State last year. In January, government forces seized control of Raqqa from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, along with much of the surrounding territory in northern and eastern Syria.
Meanwhile, U.S. forces on Monday began withdrawing from their largest military base in the northeast, according to three Syrian military and security sources – part of a broader pullout of U.S. troops who deployed to Syria a decade ago to fight Islamic State.
(Reporting by Feras Dalatey in Damascus, Jaidaa Taha, Muhammad Al Gebaly and Menna Alaa El-Din in Cairo; Additional reporting by Ahmed Elimam in Dubai, Editing by Tom Perry, David Gregorio and Ros Russell)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.