Escalating security vacuum | Former fighter assassinated in Daraa

Daraa province: SOHR sources have reported the assassination of a former member who pledged loyalty to ISIS during the organisation’s control on “Yarmouq Basin” before 2018. He was shot dead by unknown gunmen near the west countryside of Tal Shehab town.

Since early January, the number of attacks in Daraa province has risen to 25, which left 23 people killed: 14 civilians, seven regime-backed combatants, and an individual with settled status.

Since the beginning of the security chaos in Daraa in early June 2019, Syrian Observatory activists have documented more than 1,321 attacks and assassination attempts by gunfire and detonations of IEDs, motorcycle-bombs and car-bombs. These attacks and assassinations claimed the lives of 967 persons, categorised as follows:

• Four local gunmen of anti-reconciliation groups.

• 317 civilians, including 18 women and 26 children

• 417 regime soldiers, loyalists and collaborators with regime security services.

• 161 fighters of factions that struck “reconciliation and settlements” deals with the regime and became in the ranks of regime’s security branches, including former commanders.

• 31 Syrian militiamen affiliated to the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian forces.

• 37 members of the so-called 5th Corps which was established by Russia.