Since the transitional administration led by former jihadist Ahmed al-Sharaa came into power, ISIS has claimed responsibility for two assaults on Syrian security forces. The terrorist organisation, sometimes referred to as Islamic State, claimed that an explosive device detonated on a road in southern Syria had killed and wounded seven members of “the apostate Syrian regime.” The strike reportedly occurred in the desolate desert region of Talul al Safa in the Suwayda province in southern Syria.
ISIS’s self-described caliphate was both territorially defeated in March 2019 when the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) seized the last ISIS-held territory of Syria. This defeat is relatively insignificant considering the lack of real territorial footprint in Syria and Iraq. ISIS’s territorial control, at its peak, was from about 2014-2015.
ISIS claimed its first attacks on the New Syrian government forces this week since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. These actions included an attack with a car bomb in Mayadin and a series of bombings in the southern province of Sweida which caused casualties to government soldiers and members of allied militia.
According to a military source in the Suwayda area, a Free Syrian Army reconnaissance squadron was attacked Wednesday while they were monitoring ISIS in the Suwayda region. Three fighters had been wounded, and one had been killed.
The US military provides support to Free Syrian Army units in the so-called al Tanf Deconfliction Zone, which is between the Jordanian and Egyptian borders and where the US has a small station.
The Talul al Safa region is “extremely rugged and dangerous, as ISIS had been exploiting its terrain for a long time,” the insider continued. By the end of 2017, ISIS had lost nearly all of its land in Syria, but it still had a presence in the country’s enormous central desert. A few days ago, ISIS reported another attack in the same region.
The Syrian Interior Ministry reported last week that security troops working in a region close to the attacks had found “a number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), as well as weapons” at sites that belonged to an ISIS-affiliated terrorist cell.
Despite not conducting any assaults in southern Syria for at least two years, the organisation has probably kept cells there, according to the Washington, DC-based Institute for the Study of War.
The new Syrian government has received pressure from the US and other Western nations to stop ISIS and other terrorist organisations from resurfacing on Syrian territory. However, the government has had difficulty exerting its authority over Suwayda, where there are Druze and Sunni tribal conflicts.
While ISIS was territorially defeated in Syria in 2019, by 2025 it is far from defeated as an insurgent and terrorist threat. The updated version of ISIS has simply adapted to use guerrilla tactics, and is exploiting the vast deserts of Syria and inherent political instability to both sustain and increase its operations. Recent attacks targeting Syrian government forces and allied militias demonstrate ISIS’s continuing ability to threaten the stability of Syria. The pullout of US troops, and the political transition which is to follow, have combined to allow increased ISIS activity to become a new security reality in Syria.
