Al-Sukhna Desert offensive: Questions about escalation of ISIS operations in Syria

Ali Ragab

Chaos and assassinations have escalated in the Syrian Desert and the regions of Deir Ezzor, Daraa, Raqqa, Homs, As-Suwayda, and east of the Euphrates, indicating a resurgence of ISIS terrorist activity after a phase of strategic latency that serves Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s interests in Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented the killing of four members of the Russian-establish Fifth Corps in an armed attack carried out by ISIS elements at a checkpoint in the Al-Sukhna Desert at the administrative borders between Homs and Deir Ezzor.

On Wednesday, October 28, the Observatory monitored the head of the Abu Kamal Tribal Council survive an assassination attempt when his car was targeted in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor. In a related context, the Observatory documented the killing of two men who were shot by unknown gunmen in the village of Jadid Aqidat in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor.

On October 22, the eastern Hama countryside in the Syrian Desert witnessed violent clashes between the Syrian army forces and ISIS.

In March, the terrorist organization launched several attacks against members of the Syrian army forces and the militias supporting it in the Syrian Desert near the city of Palmyra in central Syria.

ISIS confirmed in a video the continuation of its terrorist operations against the Syrian army, or what they called the Nusayri forces, as a continuation of the battle launched by late ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019 before he was killed by the US army in Idlib.

The Syrian Observatory stated that the death toll from March 24, 2019 to the present day has reached 907 members of the regime forces and militants loyal to them of Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities, including at least two Russians, in addition to 140 militants loyal to Iran of non-Syrian nationalities. They were all killed during attacks, bombings and ambushes by ISIS west of the Euphrates and in the desert of Deir Ezzor, Raqqa, Homs and As-Suwayda.

The Observatory also documented the killing of four civilians working in the gas fields, 11 shepherds, and a female citizen in ISIS attacks, while 495 ISIS militants were killed during the same period.

Observers of extremist movements have warned of a return of ISIS in Syria in the absence of security and political stability, as several local and regional forces are in conflict in Syria, which makes the country a fertile environment for the return of the terrorist organization.

The observers have also warned that the detention centers of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria contain the largest human concentration of ISIS fighters in the world, making it a terrorist army in the waiting. This crisis requires an international treatment to dismantle the terrorist organization’s ability to return again through the detention camps.

The United Nations estimates that there are more than 10,000 ISIS sleeper cells in Iraq and Syria, which constitutes a threat to the efforts of the international coalition and the regional state in confronting terrorist groups.

Observers expect that ISIS could return in the coming period, intensifying attacks on the oil fields extending between Deir Ezzor and Al-Sukhna, such as the Hail field, in addition to attacking the third station adjacent to it, as part of its work to deplete the Syrian army and the SDF in the area extending between the governorates of Homs and Deir Ezzor, which serves Turkey’s strategy in Syria.