After its revival and re-activity… ISIS manages in 2 weeks to kill 173 members at least of the regime forces and their allies in Damascus and the east of the Euphrates
Despite the large decline of its scope of control, which turned it from being the party that has the largest influence on the Syrian territory, into only a controller of few scattered enclaves in Damascus, Homs, Deir Ezzor and Al-Hasakah, as well as an enclave controlled by armies pledge allegiance to it on the border with the occupied Syrian Golan, with an area of 5650 square km of Syrian territory, about 3% of the Syrian geography, but the organization revived again, and escalated its successive attacks on the positions of its rivals, where the organization concentrates its attacks on the regime forces which caused its loss to tens of thousands of kilo meters of its controlled area, thus, the organization started to direct its successive strikes in two main areas in the capital Damascus and Hmimeh – Al-Bokamal – Al-Mayadin Triangle in Deir Eazzor countryside and the outskirts of Homs Desert, where ISIS aims to inflict the largest possible number of casualties, as well as expand its scope of control after it was confined in tight separated and scattered enclaves.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has monitored since the 13th of March 2018, the start of the organization’s attack, which began with an attack in the capital Damascus, enabled it to expand in Al-Kadam neighborhood in the southern part of the capital, followed by attacks targeted the Second Station (T2) controlled by the regime forces as well as in the south of Al-Bokamal, and other attacks in Hmimeh area and Al-Mayadin Desert, amid targeting to positions of the regime forces and their allies in the west of the Euphrates River, within both eastern and south-eastern deserts of Deir Ezzor.
These successive attacks resulted in the fall of a large number of casualties in the ranks of the members of the regime forces and gunmen loyal to them, and in the ranks of the organization, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented the death of 173 members of the regime forces and gunmen loyal to them, since the 13th of March 2018, until today the 29th of the same month, including more than 114 members killed in the capital Damascus, while the rest were killed in Hmimeh – Al-Bokamal – Al-Mayadin Triangle, and the SOHR also documented the death of more than 47 members of the “Islamic State” organization including 17 members at least who were killed in the capital Damascus including a commander in the organization.
This violent attack of ISIS comes weeks after the control of the organization declined in the eastern banks of the Eupbhrates River, within the towns of Abu Al-Hassan, al-Sha’afa, Al-Baghouz, Al-Bobdara, and its districts, following the entire end of its presence in the western banks of the Euphrates River, where the SDF managed to control most of the east of the Euphrates except for the aforementioned enclave, where reliable sources confirmed to the SOHR that the organization organized its ranks in the recent stage in order to attempt to expand the organization’s controlled areas at the expense of its rivals in its areas of presence, and the SOHR published few months ago, that although the presence of the organization in the west of the Euphrates River ended on the 6th of December 2017, groups of its fighters meant to confuse the regime and its allies, by carrying out infiltrations and surprising attacks, within Deir Ezzor desert and the vicinity of Hmimeh area in the far of the north-eastern countryside of Homs, in conjunction with the attacks on areas in the eastern desert of Al-Sukhnah and attacks in other areas near the presence of the members of the organization who carry out these attacks in order to emphasize the strength of the organization and express its ability to carry out attacks and initiate them, and to result in the fall of the largest possible number of human losses in the ranks of the regime forces and their allies of non-Syrian nationalities.