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AT LEAST 20 Syrian soldiers were killed in a suspected terror attack on Thursday night.
Gunmen believed to be part of the Islamic State (Isis) group ambushed a bus near Maydeen in Deir el-Zour. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 23 soldiers were killed and 10 more wounded, while local reports put the death toll at 20.
Isis emerged as the strongest jihadist group fighting to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad government in 2014, when its forces took control over huge swathes of Syria and Iraq, but it was driven out of all the territory it held by 2019. However, it maintains cells in the country and periodically stages attacks, the worst this year being the massacre of 53 agricultural workers collecting truffles near Sukhna in February.
Other jihadist groups remain active in parts of Syria, especially Idlib province where they run a local administration under Turkish protection. Isis said earlier this month that its leader Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurayshi had recently been killed in clashes with al-Qaida, and named a new leader, Abu Hafs al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi.
