Over the past 48 hours, 27 pro-Damascus fighters, including four senior officers in the Syrian army, were killed in the desert of eastern of Homs province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Saturday morning.
This was the “biggest attack and the highest death toll among regime forces since the caliphate was declared defeated,” Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Observatory, told AFP.
More than 50 members of the Syrian army have been killed in ISIS ambushes in April, reported Al-Marsdar News. More than 15 soldiers were killed in an ambush near Palmyra on Friday, after 35 were killed in an earlier attack.
The army has sent reinforcements to the highway that connects Homs with Iraq, but has been unable to prevent the ISIS attacks, according to the news outlet that is close to the Syrian regime.
ISIS, through its Amaq propaganda outlet, has claimed responsibility, saying they set up an ambush in Jebel Bishri, a highland region where the provincial borders of Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, and Homs meet. Resulting clashes lasted for 24 hours. Amaq claimed ISIS killed 20 Syrian troops and "militants," destroyed four army vehicles, and seized weapons.
Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) declared the end of the so-called ISIS caliphate on March 23 after defeating the group in their last bastion of Baghouz, in Deir ez-Zor province. The group, however, retains a level of control over uninhabited areas in the deserts of central and eastern Syria.
“ISIS transits through support zones across the Homs Desert and frequently attacks pro-regime forces deployed to secure oil and natural gas infrastructure in areas ranging from Palmyra to the Syrian-Iraqi Border,” the Institute for the Study of War reported on Friday.
“ISIS tends to attack convoys rather than fixed positions in this area, demonstrating that its goal is likely a limited disruption of pro-regime freedom of movement and the generation of propaganda highlighting its anti-regime operations,” the US-based think tank stated.
With the territorial defeat of ISIS, the jihadists have reverted to insurgency tactics.
Updated at 12:38 pm
