In a brazen assault on Friday, ISIS gunmen targeted positions held by regime forces and their proxy militias in the al-Bukamal countryside of Deir ez-Zor, near the Syrian-Iraqi border. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that at least seven soldiers and militiamen lost their lives in the violent attack.

Although ISIS suffered territorial defeats in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019, the group remains a persistent security threat, employing hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions. This recent incident is part of a series of assaults attributed to ISIS throughout the year, with the militant group being held responsible for the deaths of pro-regime forces.

In November, a deadly ISIS attack in the Syrian desert claimed the lives of 34 pro-regime fighters and army soldiers. Prior to that, in August, 33 Syrian army soldiers were killed in an ISIS attack in the eastern Deir ez-Zor province. The ongoing conflict has resulted in at least 385 members of pro-regime forces and 165 civilians losing their lives in ISIS attacks since January, according to SOHR.

Syria's civil war, which began in 2011, has evolved into multiple fronts, involving Kurdish forces, Turkish proxies, Israeli strikes on pro-Iran factions, and clashes between the US and Iranian proxies. Russia continues to support the Syrian government, while approximately a thousand US troops remain stationed in Syria to assist in the ongoing fight against ISIS.