Members of the terrorist organization are accused of having targeted buses carrying workers in the east of the country on Friday morning.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
Twelve employees of an petroleum field under government control in eastern Syria were killed on Friday December 30 in the morning in an attack attributed to the Islamic State (IS) group, the day after the launch of an anti -jihadist operation of the Kurdish forces.
The attack, led by “cells” affiliated with IS, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), targeted buses carrying workers in the oil field of Al-Taym, west of Deir Ez-Zor. It is in this region of the vast Syrian steppe that the jihadists have entrenched themselves since the fall in March 2019 of their self -proclaimed caliphate and the loss of all their control areas.
According to the director of the OSDH, Rami Abdel Rahmane, the attack began “with the detonation of explosive devices when the buses are passed, before IS elements open fire on the vehicles” And kill twelve Syrian workers. For its part, the official Syrian news agency Sana reported that “ten workers had been killed and two others injured following a terrorist attack targeting three buses carrying workers” working in the oil field.
The Syrian Minister of Petroleum, Bassam Tohmé, explained shortly after on state television that one of the buses “had been affected by a rocket” and that four workers had been injured. The authors of “the terrorist attack (…) took advantage of the bad weather conditions and the morning fog in the region”, he said.
similar attack in 2021
Last year, IS launched a similar attack on December 2, 2021, which led to the death of ten workers from the Al-Kharata oil field located 20 kilometers south-east of the city Deir ez-Zor.
The group’s attacks often target military bases and vehicles of government forces in Badiya, the steppe which extends between the provinces of Homs (center) and Deir Ez-Zor, on the border with Iraq. This Syrian desert is the scene of clashes in which Russian planes in support of government forces are sometimes involved in the positions and movements of IS.
Since the beginning of the month, IS cells have accelerated the pace of their operations in Badiya, mainly targeting government forces and pro-Iranian groups that are allied. These attacks killed thirty-seven fighters of the regime, as well as two members of IS and a civilian, according to a balance sheet of the observatory on Monday.
This last attack of IS intervened the day after the launch by the Syrian democratic forces (FDS, dominated by Kurdish fighters) of an operation in the north and northeast of the country. The offensive carried out “with the participation of the international anti-jihadist coalition”, directed by the United States, aims to “eliminate the terrorist cells of IS (…) and drive them out of the areas which have been the scene of recent attacks terrorists, “the SDFs said in a statement on Thursday. Friday, they reported the arrest of “fifty-two mercenaries of IS and facilitators of its terrorist operations, which were sheltered in residential areas”.
The FDS operation occurs three days after a deadly attack claimed by IS against their headquarters in Rakka (North) who had killed nine in their ranks and whose authors failed to release jihadists of a prison. In its claim of the attack on Monday, IS said it wanted to “avenge” the jihadists held by the Kurdish forces.
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Following this attack, the Kurdish autonomous administration declared the state of emergency and a curfew in Rakka, whose FDS had regained control in 2017 after violent Fighting with IS. The SDFs report in their press release Thursday of “eight attempts at attack (…) against the al-Hol camp and in regions in Deir Ez-Zor and Hassaké”, in northeast Syria.
Despite the strikes in particular American targeting its leaders, its movements and its positions, the IS always manages to launch attacks, especially in the east and northeast of Syria. The war in Syria has done almost half a million dead since 2011 and and moved several million people inside and outside the country.