Syria’s Internal Security Forces said Thursday that three of their personnel were killed and several others wounded in a clash with an armed group linked to the Islamic State (IS) in the city of al-Sanamayn, Daraa province. According to the agency, the group was led by a wanted man. The gunfight began when patrols went to the home of a man suspected of having ties to IS and came under fire; shots were later also fired as they attempted to enter another house in the same area. Three security personnel were killed and five others wounded.
After the battle, the Internal Security Forces said they had deployed across the city, begun pursuing members of the group and those involved in the attack, and imposed a temporary curfew. In a separate statement, they confirmed that the armed group belonged to IS and said they had begun storming the location where it was hiding after establishing a cordon. The group members were given time to surrender, but no response was received. The agency also released footage it described as showing a reinforced deployment of security forces and “a cordon to strengthen stability and the rule of law.”
Syria’s Interior Ministry spokesman, Nour al-Din al-Baba, explained that the Criminal Investigation Department in al-Sanamayn had suspected a criminal cell and, while monitoring it, launched an operation to arrest its members, after which a gunfight broke out. He said the cell coordinated with people suspected of links to IS in Daraa province, and that a network of contacts and mutual interests existed between the two groups. He also confirmed that the cell had previously taken part in criminal activities; searches across the city are continuing, and a large quantity of weapons has already been seized.
The incident comes amid efforts by the Syrian government and security forces to restore stability after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024. Syrian authorities previously announced that they had joined the international coalition against IS. IS periodically claims responsibility for attacks, mainly targeting Syrian security forces, after calling on its fighters to battle the new authorities. Since then, Syrian intelligence services have carried out numerous operations and arrested officers, militia commanders and former officials implicated in crimes against Syrians.
News commentary
Why do Daraa province and the city of al-Sanamayn remain areas of activity for cells linked to IS, and what role has this southern region played in the Syrian conflict since 2011? — Daraa is a southern province bordering Jordan, where anti-government protests began in 2011 and are considered the starting point of the Syrian uprising. After 2011, the region became one of the centers of the armed opposition, including the Southern Front and the Free Syrian Army. In 2018, Assad’s regime regained control of most of Daraa through “reconciliation” agreements, while local groups, weapons and clan militias remained in place. Al-Sanamayn is a city on the strategic Damascus–Daraa highway and an important hub for smuggling, arms and drug trafficking—particularly captagon—as well as local tribal and family conflicts. After 2018, weak governance, unemployment, revenge killings and parallel security structures persisted there. Dormant IS cells and affiliated groups, such as remnants of Khalid ibn al-Walid in the Yarmouk Basin, have exploited these conditions to carry out killings, terrorist attacks and assaults on security personnel. After Assad’s fall in December 2024, the power vacuum, incomplete integration of local factions into the new security forces and smuggling networks once again created favorable conditions for IS activity in the south. In addition, southern Syria remains a strategic corridor between Damascus, Jordan and the Golan Heights, making the struggle for control of the region particularly significant.
What are Syria’s Internal Security Forces mentioned in the article, and how do they relate to the Interior Ministry, the army and other security structures after Assad’s fall? — The “Internal Security Forces” (ISF; Arabic: al-Amn al-Dakhili, often translated as Internal Security Forces) are police and gendarmerie formations of Syria’s new government. They were created after December 2024 on the basis of the structures of the Idlib Salvation Government, which was linked to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and parts of former rebel groups. They perform police functions: maintaining order, patrolling, controlling roads and checkpoints, protecting government facilities, and combating crime, smuggling and IS cells. They sometimes also take part in counterterrorism raids. Formally, the ISF falls under the Interior Ministry and is supposed to report to it, but in practice its commanders and structure remain closely connected to HTS and the new leadership in Damascus. The Interior Ministry is responsible for the civilian police, passports, migration, prisons and public security. The army, under the Defense Ministry, is a separate structure: regular armed forces being formed from former factions. It conducts combat operations and major counterterrorism operations but is not supposed to handle routine policing. Other security structures after Assad include the General Intelligence Directorate, Military Intelligence, the State Security Service, as well as local and tribal militias, the Southern Operations Room and others. The boundaries between them are blurred: Assad’s old intelligence services have been dissolved or reorganized, new agencies partly overlap, and in areas including Daraa and al-Sanamayn, actual security is often provided by local factions rather than by a single Interior Ministry–army chain of command.
Full version: Internal Security surrounds an Islamic State cell in the Daraa countryside… What are the details of the operation?