Developments in Detail:
A Growing ISIS Threat
ISIS has continued its heightened tempo of attacks both in northeast Syria and in the regime-held badiya, or central desert region. This past week, ISIS attacks in the latter – in rural Homs, Hama, Deir ez Zour, and particularly along key roadways between Aleppo and Deir ez Zour, between al-Sukhna and Palmyra, and between Palmyra and Homs – have left at least 35 dead, including a Syrian Army Brigadier General from the 3rd Division.
Since January 2024, ISIS has markedly escalated its attacks in Syria, with data from January through to June 1 revealing a 240% increase compared to the same period in 2023. This dramatic escalation has occurred simultaneously in the SDF-held northeast and in regime-held areas, on a scale unseen since 2017, with attacks spiking by 213% in the former and 320% in the latter. The deadliness of ISIS attacks has been significantly worse in regime areas.
While ISIS attacks have spiked, so too has their audacity, with an increasing portion targeting larger and fixed targets, demonstrating a greater level of complexity, and with ISIS dedicating greater numbers of operatives to attacks – indicating a reduced concern over losing forces. ISIS is also now operating more and more in urban areas and conducting attacks reliant on timely and specific local intelligence. Meanwhile, ISIS’s extortion and intimidation network is back in strength in eastern Syria, along with increasing reports of ISIS ‘shadow rule’ being a reality in parts of rural Deir ez Zour.
It is in this wider context that Syrian regime forces have recently launched a week of self-described ‘clearing operations,’ driven from the front by the Syrian Army’s 25th Special Tasks Division, but also including local militia, Iranian proxies & new Syrian Army recruits from across the country. Russia has helped to support the ground operations with near-daily airstrikes. However, despite much fanfare, the regime response displays an eerie similarity to many previous “clearance operations” in the badiya that have demonstrated no track record of success. In fact, just this week, ISIS militants have demonstrated a concerning ability to almost at will pick off Syrian forces, which tend to move in large numbers, on exposed routes, with little or no form of cover fire of stand-off protection. In addition to daily, deadly ambushes, ISIS has also continued its increasing willingness to devote forces to aggressive ground assaults on Syrian army fixed positions.
For more: see my upcoming feature piece in al-Majalla.
300 Days of Suwayda Protests & Counting
June 11 marked 300 days of consecutive anti-regime demonstrations in Syria’s southern governorate of Suwayda – a popular protest movement that has openly associated itself at various times with Suwayda’s Druze community, with the Free Syrian Army and Syria’s revolution, with UN Security Council Resolution 2254, and with popular Syrian revolutionary symbols dating from 2011 and earlier. Suwayda’s persistent protest campaign has drawn in the public support of opposition communities in northwestern Syria and in the Syrian diaspora abroad.
The June 7 discovery of several crude improvised explosive devices four days earlier in close proximity to the long-time speaker platform positioned in Suwayda’s Karama Square spoke clearly to a long-running but more subtle regime intimidation campaign. A month ago, the regime also appointed Suwayda a new governor in General Akram Ali Mohammed, someone notorious for coordinating the violent suppression of protests in Aleppo in the early phases of Syria’s uprising. Within days of his appointment, armored vehicles and heavy weaponry arrived into the governorate from the north, reinforcing the regime’s core security positions. But protesters have not been deterred.
While the Syrian regime’s approach to protests in Suwayda has demonstrated a clear divergence from the zero-tolerance approach embraced in early-2011, that is likely more of a reflection of Suwayda’s uniqueness than any sudden regime willingness to allow open dissent. For decades, the Druze majority governorate has asserted a meaningful level of semi-autonomy and self-rule, and given regional Druze dynamics and Assad’s dependence on maintaining the allegiance or acquiescence of Syria’s minority groups, that has rarely been challenged. To initiate some form of aggressive crackdown now – particularly against a protest campaign driven at its core by economic grievances – would risk triggering a serious challenge to an already fragile regime.
Meanwhile, as protests continue, the effective Druze tactic of kidnapping regime security personnel as a method of coercing it to release detained Druze civilians remains in play. The first example of tit-for-tat kidnapping came in April, when Druze gunmen kidnapped six Syrian Army officers in order to demand that the regime release a young Druze man, Danny Obaid, who had been arrested in February. He was swiftly released in a prisoner exchange. This past week, on June 13, a similar deal was agreed to secure the regime’s release of female detainee Rita Nawaf al-Iqbani, who had been detained in Damascus three days earlier. She was released in exchange for four Syrian Army officers captured by Druze gunmen in Suwayda. Interestingly, this tactic has now also been adopted by gunmen next-door in Daraa, who have used kidnapping of regime personnel since late-May to secure the release of comrades.
For more, see Ishtar al-Shami at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and coverage at Syria Direct.
AANES Postpones Municipal Elections Amid External Pressure
Municipal elections scheduled for June 11 within the Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria (AANES) did not go ahead as planned, after a decision by the AANES to postpone them until August. The elections had previously been delayed from May to June for logistical reasons. Officially, the AANES said this latest postponement was in order to give more time for participating parties to campaign and communicate, and to coordinate with monitoring organizations, but in reality, it was the result of Turkish threats and U.S. political pressure.
Given Turkiye’s long-standing opposition and hostility to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the AANES – given both bodies’ deep association with the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which was established in 2003 as the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – Ankara’s objections to municipal elections was little surprise. In a speech at a military base on May 25, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the AANES’ scheduled elections as a threat to “the territorial integrity of our country” and warned that “we did what needed to be done before… and we will not hesitate to take action again” – a veiled threat of military action. Ultimately, Turkey views any initiative aimed at consolidating SDF rule and lending its territorial rule and governance an air of legitimacy as a national security threat linked intrinsically to its decades-long war against the PKK.
But while Turkiye’s protest and threats were expected, a statement that came out from the U.S. State Department on May 31 was perhaps not. It asserted that “any elections that occur in Syria should be free, fair, transparent and inclusive, as is called for in UNSCR 2254, and we don’t think that the conditions for such elections are in place in [northeast] Syria in the present time.” This U.S. statement was likely decisive and came amid concerted behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts to heal U.S.-Turkiye ties, including over Syria, which began following Turkiye’s green-lighting of Sweden’s accession into NATO. Public U.S. government concern over the prospect of municipal elections in northeast Syria arguably first emerged in April, when the ‘U.S. Embassy in Syria’ account on Twitter/X condemned a spate of attacks against “political offices and parties” in the area. Although the statement did not specify, those attacks had all struck facilities belonging to or associated with the Kurdish National Council (KNC), which has long stood as the primary political opponent to the PYD and later the SDF and AANES. For its part, the KNC planned to boycott the elections.
The AANES elections will, if they eventually occur, select co-chairs and municipal council members in more than 130 municipalities in seven SDF-controlled “cantons.”
For more, see: Amy Austin Holmes’ analysis at the Wilson Center, and coverage in Al-Monitor and Voice of America.
Developments in Brief:
Conflict & Security
On June 18, ISIS militants set-up a ‘pop-up checkpoint’ on the main road leading north from al-Busayra in SDF-held Deir ez Zour. The militants stopped vehicles traveling on the road, checking identity documents. Nearby, other ISIS militants briefly seized an oil tanker thought to be transporting oil extracted for sale in regime-held areas, threatening the driver. That latter incident follows a spate of similar ISIS threats targeting the SDF-linked oil industry and its trade with Syria’s regime. On May 30, the group distributed flyers in its self-described Wilayat al-Khayr threatening to attack oil tanker or driver transporting oil.
For more, see Zain al-Abidin.
On June 17, SDF fighters shot dead two ISIS militants who were allegedly in the early phases of launching an attack on a nearby SDF checkpoint in eastern Deir ez Zour. On June 15 and 16, at least six SDF fighters were reportedly killed in successive ISIS attacks across Deir ez Zour governorate, including in Dhiban and Hajin, while an SDF raid on June 15 also targeted and killed two ISIS militants in the village of al-Iskandarun near Tel Hamis. The two targets, identified as Mohannad Al-Madloul (Abu Sham) and Saad Mahjoub al-Madloul (Abu Saddam) were accused of involvement in killings, kidnappings and bombings in the area. On June 13, SDF fighters captured two alleged ISIS militants during a targeted operation in rural Deir ez Zour.
Iraqi security forces announced on June 11 that a rare covert cross-border counter-terrorism raid had been conducted “in recent days” into Raqqa governorate in Syria, successfully killing an ISIS commander known as Abu Zeinab, who had been involved in deadly ISIS attacks in Iraq and acted as a weapons smuggler and facilitator across the Syrian-Iraqi border. The Iraqi operation was reportedly coordinated with the U.S.-led coalition and comes amid continued Iraqi pressure to close out the international coalition’s operational presence on Iraqi soil.
For more: Asharq al-Awsat
Late on June 13 and early on June 14, suspected ISIS militants launched two successive attacks on Iranian proxy militias around al-Bukamal in Deir ez Zour – killing two and kidnapping four, including an alleged Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander identified as “Hajji Abu Amir.”
For more: Al-Araby al-Jadeed
According to opposition media, a joint arrangement between Turkey and Russia may soon see the re-opening of the Abu al-Zendeen crossing between regime and opposition Syrian National Army-controlled areas of northern Aleppo. Speculation mounted following a meeting of Turkish and Russian military officers near al-Bab, triggering local protests and a Turkish deployment of military reinforcements to positions throughout the region late on June 12.
For more: Asharq al-Awsat & al-Modon
An Israel Defense Force ‘Skylark’ intelligence drone crashed in Quneitra, Syria on June 17. No further information was released regarding the circ*mstances of the crash.
Egyptian authorities seized 6.5 million Syrian-made captagon pills, along with 750,000 opioid tablets in a series of coordinated raids involving forces from al-Qalyubia and Ismailia governorates.
For more: Egyptian Interior Ministry
Syrian Democratic Forces intercepted smugglers carrying 162,000 captagon pills and 208 packets of hashish outside the city of Raqqa. The smugglers had arrived via regime-held areas.
For more: Asayish
Pro-regime forces shelled opposition-held areas of northwestern Syria repeatedly over the past week, including the towns of Kafr Taal, Kafr Amr and Kafr Nouran in western Aleppo’s countryside, and the al-Ruwaiyha, al-Fatiha and al-Bara areas in southern Idlib. HTS-linked forces also engaged in hostilities targeting regime forces, including killing two Syrian soldiers by sniper fire in southern Idlib on June 13.
For more: Asharq al-Awsat
The Republican Guard and Fourth Division have reportedly begun testing a new recruitment strategy in the Damascus countryside, seeking volunteer recruits by offering salaries (of more than $100 per month) far higher than those paid to conscripted officers and guaranteeing that deployment remains within one’s home districts.
For more: Ain al-Sham
On June 13, SDF forces on a local patrol raided a home in al-Thayban in Deir ez Zour, shooting a man and taking him away for medical treatment in the U.S. base at al-Omar oilfield. The man, identified as Alaa Issa al-Mizhar, died of his wounds and his body was deposited outside his home in al-Thayban later that day. Additional reports alleged that SDF small-arms fire across the Euphrates River killed a four year-old girl in her home in al-Mayadin on June 16, and that a man, Faraj al-Ismail, died on June 15 of wounds sustained during an SDF raid on his home southeast of Manbij the day before.
For more: Syrian Network for Human Rights, and here & here.
A Syrian Palestinian member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad – originating from the Yarmouk Camp south of Damascus and identified as Mohammed Jalbout – was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on June 15. Eighteen Syrian PIJ fighters have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon since October 2023.
For more: Long War Journal
One man was killed when an artillery shell landed just outside the Kuwait al-Rahma displacement camp in rural Afrin district, northern Aleppo. Local reporting blamed the attack variously on the SDF and pro-regime forces – both of which are positioned nearby and have a track record of cross-line shelling in the area.
Human rights monitors reported the abduction of a female high-school student – identified as Amani Sheikh Khalil – by a female SDF unit in al-Shahba district of rural eastern Aleppo, allegedly to be conscripted into the SDF.
The corpses of at least three men were discovered in Daraa this past week, showing signs of torture and execution by gunshot.
CNN’s Clarissa Ward and Senior Field Producer Brent Swails just returned from northeast Syria, where they reported on the unprecedented challenges associated with the holding of nearly 10,000 ISIS militants and 50,000 associated family members and others in a network of prisons and camps. Watch her report, and read the dispatch.
Humanitarian Affairs
After three months with no external aid delivery, residents of the Rukban IDP camp welcomed a delivery of 27 tonnes of humanitarian assistance from the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF) on June 12. Aid items were sourced from USAID. The delivery came amid rising levels of acute malnutrition and intense summer heat. On June 10, one 21-day-old infant died, after the camp ran out of baby formula supplies altogether – leaving some to resort to goat milk or grinding rice in water.
According to an April 1, 2024 document leaked to al-Quds al-Arabi, Syria’s Ministry of Defense issued a military order to all units to block all deliveries of food, medicine and animal feed to the population of Rukban IDP camp. The order was directly primarily to pro-regime units deployed around the al-Tanf region, including the First, Third and Eighteenth divisions of the Syrian Arab Army, as well as Military Intelligence Directorate’s Branch 221.
For more: Al-Quds al-Arabi
Although still a trickle compared to the total numbers of refugees, authorities in Idlib have recorded a marked increase in Syrian refugees arriving in the northwest from Lebanon – with 446 arriving in April and 1041 in May. That 130% increase comes amid heightening socio-political pressures on Syrian refugees in Lebanon, realized through a state security crackdown and violent and discriminatory rhetoric from across the political spectrum.
For more: Associated Press.
On June 11, Lebanese intelligence forces reportedly transferred Ahmed Zahouri, a defected Syrian Army officer originally from al-Qusayr, back to Syria and into the custody of Syrian military intelligence. Zahouri, who had been living in a refugee camp near Arsal, was detained by Lebanese authorities in late-May.
Reporters Without Borders issued a public statement on June 14 warning that despite regional states normalizing their ties with Assad’s regime, Syria remained one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist – with a press freedom rank of 179 out of 180. In particular, RWB was highlighting the increasing threat posed by the prospect of exiled Syrian journalists living elsewhere in the Middle East (notably, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon) being forcefully returned to Syria, risking their life.
For more: Reporters Without Borders
Speculation was rife among Syria’s sizeable refugee population in Turkey that authorities there were on the brink of a mass revocation of Turkish citizenship from thousands of Syrians. Although Turkish authorities have made no announcement of imminent action, Turkey’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya has advanced what he has called a “correctional” agenda since taking office in June 2023, removing citizenship granted to refugees accused of security crimes or having used fake documents in their citizenship applications.
For more: The New Arab
Politics & Diplomacy
On June 12, the UN Security Council convened a session to discuss Syria’s chemical weapons, during which representatives from the U.S. and U.K. both accused Damascus of retaining an undeclared chemical weapons stockpile, despite its membership of the Chemical Weapons Convention and being a party to UN Security Council Resolution 2118. British official Laura Dix claimed that thousands of Syrian munitions capable of carrying chemical weapons and hundreds of tons of chemicals remained missing.
For more: Enab al-Baladi
Regime linked media reported on June 16 that Ambassador Riad Abbas was being appointed as Syria’s new charge d’affairs in Amman, Jordan – to replace Issam Nayyal. Abbas’s previous positions have included Ambassador to India; director of Arab Affairs in Syria’s Foreign Ministry; and Deputy Ambassador to North Korea.
For more: Syria TV
The Economy
As many Syrians prepared to celebrate Eid al-Adha, Damascus witnessed a 35-40% rise in the scale and value of financial remittances arriving from abroad over the past week. This sharp rise came amid a broader and sustained 30% rise in remittance payments into Syria, as inflationary pressures, subsidy reductions and staple good price rises all contributed towards exacerbating an already sky-high level (90%) of Syrians living under the poverty line.
For more: Athr Press
On June 10, the Syrian regime issued Decree No. 17, issuing a one-off “grant” of SYP 300,000 to civilian and military state employees. The announcement, in advance of Eid, garnered satirical responses across social media in Syria, given the relatively small amount (equal to roughly 4.5% of the average monthly cost of living) and concerns that it would exacerbate short-term inflation and commodity price rises.
For more: Kassioun
According to public commentary on the AANES’ newly released budget for fiscal year 2024, authorities in northeastern Syria look set to suffer a further blow to their economy, particularly given the effects of increasing Turkish airstrikes targeting power and oil infrastructure since late-2023. Destruction and damage incurred to oil facilities in northeastern Syria has had particularly damaging implications for the AANES’ ability to earn vital revenues from the production and sale of oil, which has consistently represented between 76-92% of the entire budget in recent years.
For more: Enab al-Baladi & The Syria Report
Compounding the escalating fiscal strains on the AANES’ economy is the recent decision by the AANES to reduce the price of wheat by nearly 30% from 2023 into 2024. The new set price of $310 per tonne leaves farmers in Syria’s traditional agricultural belt barely able to meet their costs of production – a reality that triggered protests across the northeast.
For more: The Syria Report
Syria inaugurated a new Islamic Bank in Damascus this past week. The al-Madina bank is majority owned by Iranian shareholders, including several former senior officials from Iran’s Central Bank.
