The report states that the past 12 months have witnessed a significant increase in ISIS operations, many of which have been launched from US-occupied areas in Syria.
According to a report published by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on December 29, ISIS fighters have killed around 753 people in 491 recorded operations in Syria since the beginning of 2018.
“ISIS continues to carry out almost daily military operations and counter-attacks in areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian desert, while ISIS cells can still take advantage of opportunities to create a security vacuum and carry out assassinations, which clearly shows. The SOHR report states that the “Islamic State” is still alive and kicking.
These operations included ambushes, armed attacks and bombings. They were concentrated in the Aleppo-Hama-Raqqa triangle, the eastern desert of Homs, and the deserts of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa provinces, with a total of 646 deaths.
The report emphasizes that at least 78 of these were civilians – including women and children – and 568 were members of the disbanded Syrian Arab Army (SAA).
Another 107 people were also killed in areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces in Deir Ezzor, Hasakah, Aleppo, and Raqqa. This figure is divided between 30 civilians and 77 members of the SDF, the Internal Security Forces (ISF) and other groups in areas controlled by the United States.
The Syrian desert region is geographically linked to the so-called “55-kilometer zone” around the massive US-occupied al-Tanf base in eastern Syria. According to numerous reports in recent years, ISIS and other extremist groups have been trained at al-Tanf and have received logistical support to carry out strikes against Syrian army forces in the desert region.
Although most of those killed by ISIS this year were SAA members, the extremist armed group often targets truffle hunters in the Syrian desert and has killed hundreds in the past few years.
In contrast, ISIS has lost around 117 fighters and commanders in security operations by various actors in Syria since the beginning of this year. At least 58 of them were killed in Russian airstrikes and SAA operations, while 42 were killed by the SDF and the US-led “international coalition”.
As ISIS continues to rebuild its forces, concerns have grown about the fate of the 10,000 ISIS fighters held captive by the SDF in northeastern Syria. Kurdish officials said earlier this month that ongoing incursions by former ISIS and al-Qaeda groups – backed by Turkey and allied with the “transitional government” in Damascus – pose a direct “threat” to the security of these prisons. “This is the closest thing we have to a ticking time bomb,” an anonymous U.S. official told Politico on Dec. 18. “If [Turkey] doesn’t stop these attacks on the SDF, we could have a major prison break on our hands.” In response to the growing threat, Iraq has significantly increased security in its northwest region, deploying hundreds of counterterrorism forces and building a trench along the Syrian border. Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s new ruler and a backer of ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has not commented on the crisis since taking power and receiving support from Western and Persian Gulf states earlier this month.
