According to the group’s press agency, the ISIL (ISIS) group killed five Kurdish fighters in an offensive in Deir Az Zor, eastern Syria, raising fears about the group’s potential revival. Five members of Syria’s Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed in the attack, which Farhad Shami, the organization’s spokeswoman, told Reuters news agency on Monday was “one of the deadliest” to hit the group in a long time.
The battle between ISIS and Syria’s Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has been the core of the Syrian civil war, especially in northeastern Syria. The SDF, a mostly Kurdish YPG-dominated coalition of Arab and other forces, has been the main ground force combatting ISIS in Syria, backed by major US-led coalition support.
ISIL conquered Deir Az Zor city in 2014, but the Syrian army recaptured it back in 2017. In the past, the ISIL organization imposed harsh authority over millions of people in large areas of Syria and Iraq, including Raqqa, which is located in northern Iraq and around 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of Aleppo.
Prior to his death in a U.S. special forces assault in northwest Syria in 2019, as ISIL disintegrated, former leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had proclaimed a caliphate over the two nations in 2014.
The gang was known for its ruthlessness and, at its height, controlled a territory half the size of the United Kingdom. It enslaved and sexually assaulted thousands of women from the Yazidi group, one of the oldest religious minorities in Iraq, beheaded civilians, and quickly massacred 1,700 captured Iraqi troops.
In September 2014, the United States spearheaded a coalition of over 80 nations to combat the organization. The coalition is still conducting raids against ISIL’s bases in Iraq and Syria. When US-backed and Kurdish-led SDF troops took possession of the eastern Syrian town of Baghouz, the last remaining area under ISIL’s control, in March 2019, the battle against the group was declared formally over.
ISIS assaults on SDF positions have continued through late 2024, with several SDF fighters reported killed in ambushes and IED attacks in Al-Raqqah, Deir ez-Zor, and Al-Hasakah provinces. For instance, on 17 November 2024, an SDF fighter was killed in an ISIS attack; on 24 November, two SDF fighters were killed and one critically wounded by an ISIS IED in Deir ez-Zo.
When Iraqi troops retook Mosul in July 2017, the organization was likewise vanquished in Iraq. The SDF retook Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIL in northern Syria, three months later, dealing the group a serious setback. ISIL has been recruiting new recruits and claiming credit for fatal assaults all across the world in an attempt to create a resurgence.
