QAMISHLO, Syrian Kurdistan,— Five Kurdish fighters were killed in Syria’s eastern Deir el-Zor region in an attack claimed by Islamic State (IS/ISIS) militants, the group’s news agency reported Monday. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) acknowledged the attack in a statement.
Farhad Shami, an SDF spokesperson, told Reuters that the attack was “one of the deadliest” the group has faced in recent months. The assault occurred in Deir el-Zor, an area where Islamic State once controlled large swaths of territory.
Islamic State fighters captured Deir el-Zor in 2014 amid a swift territorial advance across Syria and Iraq. . However, the Syrian government reclaimed the city in 2017.
At its height, the Islamic State imposed strict Islamist rule across millions of people before being pushed back by various regional and international forces.
The Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military wings, the YPG and YPJ, have played a key role in battling Islamic State fighters. Supported with U.S. arms and training, the YPG forms the core of the SDF, the de facto army of the Kurdish autonomous administration region in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava).
After years of fighting, the Kurdish forces drove Islamic State out of its last stronghold in Baghouz in March 2019. Since then, around 12,000 suspected Islamic State members have been detained in Kurdish-run prisons.
The conflict has been costly for Kurdish forces, who lost more than 21,000 fighters, including men and women, in battles against ISIS and Turkey-backed Syrian Islamist mercenary groups.
Islamic State’s leader at the time, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a “caliphate” over parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014. He was killed in a U.S. special operations raid in northwest Syria in 2019.
Despite its territorial defeat, Islamic State has been attempting to rebuild its presence in the Middle East, Asia, and parts of the West.
(With files from Reuters | Agencies)
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