Attentions are focusing on al-Mayadeen District in Syria’s Deir Ezzor Governorate today, after a late Monday suicide car bombing against a local police station killed at least five people and wounded a numbers of others.
Syrian state media reported that three security officers were killed and several wounded in the car bombing. There has been no claim of credit yet but ISIS is believed to be the culprit. As one official noted, “it is no secret that ISIS has cells in al-Mayadeen.”
Early Tuesday, the General Security forces launched a large-scale campaign in and around al-Mayadeen city. They reported that 12 ISIS suspects, along with two Iranian militants, were captured so far in the ongoing operation.
They also reported an unnamed person described as a “top” ISIS cell leader captured elsewhere in the countryside in Deir Ezzor. Anti-ISIS operations have been scaling up across the country in recent days, including a raid yesterday against Aleppo that led to the death of three ISIS members.
ISIS is known to have a substantial presence in eastern Syria: they’ve often clashed with the Kurdish SDF and backing US forces. As the Islamist HTS government tries to gain control over the country, however, increasingly it’s an Islamist vs. Islamist fight.
The HTS-dominated Interior Ministry has been keen to target ISIS, both because it’s an opportunity to help normalize ties with the US and because their head, Interior Minister Anas Khattab has long led HTS efforts to purge rival Islamist factions.
HTS leader President Ahmed al-Sharaa met with President Trump last week, and that meeting led to ISIS condemnations of him and HTS. They claimed Sharaa was prioritizing “those whose master is Trump over those whose master is Muhammad.”
Though ideologically similar, the HTS and ISIS have long been rivals. ISIS has tended toward a more international influence priority, while the HTS is increasingly styling themselves as a purely domestic organization.
