The jihadist Islamic State (IS) group killed nine pro-Iranian Syrian fighters in an attack Thursday (December 10th) against one of their positions in eastern Syria, an NGO said.
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The attack targeted those militiamen loyal to the Syrian regime and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in a desert region near the town of Al-Mayadine in Deir Ezzor province, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Male (OSDH).
The Revolutionary Guards are the ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which militarily assists the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad in its war against rebels and jihadists.
Despite being routed with the fall of its "
caliphate
" in March 2019, ISIS has sleeper cells that continue to carry out deadly attacks in Syria, especially in the vast desert stretching from the center to the far east. country.
At dawn Thursday, nine Syrian militiamen were killed in the attack and at least two jihadists were killed in the fighting that followed, said OSDH.
Since March 2019, fighting, mainly in the desert area, has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 Syrian soldiers and pro-Iranian militiamen, as well as more than 580 ISIS jihadists, according to the NGO.
In 2020, the fighting has largely declined in intensity in Syria thanks to a ceasefire in the northwest of the country and efforts to combat the new coronavirus.
The Syrian regime, with the support of Russia and Iran, has succeeded in recent years in recapturing more than 70% of the territory.
The war, triggered by the repression of protests calling for reforms, has killed more than 387,000 since 2011.