Syria bus blast kills five defense ministry personnel: official

No group immediately claimed responsibility of the attack. (File/AFP)

• “An explosive device detonated as a bus carrying oil facility guards affiliated with the defense ministry passed by,” the official said
• No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack

DAMASCUS: A blast targeting a bus in Syria’s eastern province of Deir Ezzor on Thursday killed at least five defense ministry personnel, an official from the ministry told AFP.
“An explosive device detonated as a bus carrying oil facility guards affiliated with the defense ministry passed by, killing five of them and wounding 13 others, including civilian bystanders,” the official said, requesting anonymity.
State television said a blast hit a bus on the road between the cities of Deir Ezzor and Mayadeen, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) away.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but a human rights observatory said the perpetrators were “likely affiliated with a Daesh group cell.”
Daesh militants, once in control of large swathes of Iraq and Syria, were territorially defeated in Syria in 2019 in a battle spearheaded by the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with support from an international coalition.
The militants still maintain a presence, particularly in Syria’s vast desert, launching attacks mostly on Kurdish-controlled areas in the country’s northeast.
During Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011, Daesh carried out similar attacks on buses targeting the forces of former ruler Bashar Assad.
Since the new Islamist-led authorities took power after Assad’s December ouster, militant attacks on government-controlled areas have been scarce.
In May, Daesh claimed its first attack on the new forces, with the Observatory saying one member of Syrian army personnel was killed and three others wounded.
The following month, authorities accused Daesh of being behind a deadly suicide attack in a Damascus church that killed 25 people, though the group never claimed responsibility.