Islamic State Says It Targeted Syrian Forces in Bomb Attacks

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for two bomb explosions in Syria, the first time the extremist group has directly targeted the new government since it took over in December, a war monitoring group said.

In two statements posted online on Thursday and reported by the SITE Intelligence Group, ISIS claimed that bombs laid by its members had killed and wounded government soldiers and allied militia members.

The Syrian government did not report any attacks by ISIS in the area, but announced that it had conducted two raids against Islamic State operatives in the Damascus area in the past week.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, reported that one person was killed and three members of the Syrian Army’s 70th Division were wounded when a patrol was hit by a remote-controlled land mine in the east of Sweida Province on Wednesday. The man killed was accompanying the government forces, it said.

The two attacks claimed by ISIS took place in the southern province of Sweida, where the group has not been active for the best part of a decade. But the government has struggled to establish security in the province, which is effectively controlled by the Druse minority. Sectarian clashes between local militants and pro-government forces in the province killed more than 100 in late April and early May.

The Islamic State, which controlled large parts of Iraq and Syria a decade ago until U.S. and allied Syrian forces largely defeated it, has continued a low-level insurgency in eastern Syria since 2019. But it has shown a renewed vigor since the fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December, plotting attacks even in the capital, Damascus, and claiming responsibility for a car bombing among other attacks in eastern Syria.