DAMASCUS - Islamic State announced on Tuesday that its fighters had carried out an attack in eastern Syria that resulted in casualties among Syrian government forces. The statement, circulated on the group's Amaq News Agency, said its fighters ambushed members of what it called "the apostate Syrian army" in the Hasakah countryside and killed and wounded six personnel.
Syrian state news agency SANA reported on Monday that an assault by unknown assailants on a bus in the same Hasakah area left two Syrian army soldiers dead and additional soldiers wounded. The government's account did not identify the attackers, while Islamic State publicly claimed responsibility through its brief online statement.
The incident marks the first deadly operation that Islamic State has publicly linked to strikes against the Syrian government since February, when the group announced a new phase of operations targeting the administration of President Ahmed al-Sharaa. That February campaign included several attacks, among them an assault near Raqqa that killed four Syrian government security personnel.
The attack in Hasakah underscores the ongoing presence of Islamic State as an armed threat in parts of Syria. At its height during the civil war a decade ago, the group exercised control over roughly a quarter or more of Syrian territory before being driven out of those areas by a U.S.-led coalition and other forces.
President Sharaa, who fought Islamic State during the civil conflict while leading the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, severed ties with al Qaeda in 2016. Nearly one and a half years after he removed Bashar al-Assad from power, Sharaa is attempting to consolidate government authority across Syria. Last year, his government joined the U.S.-led coalition in actions aimed at countering Islamic State.
While the statements from both the Syrian state agency and Islamic State differ in the number of casualties reported, both accounts place the incident in the Hasakah countryside and identify government forces as the target. The broader pattern of recent attacks since Islamic State's February declaration indicates a continuation of its campaign against Sharaa's administration.
Source limitations: Details remain limited to the claims and official state reporting described above; independent verification of the incident and exact casualty figures was not provided in those statements.