Unidentified assailants attack a military bus on the Tal Tamr – Ras al-Ain road

One member was killed and 10 others were wounded  at dawn on Thursday,  June 18, when a military bus belonging to the Syrian Ministry of Defense was targeted on the Tal Tamr – Ras al-Ain international road in the northwestern countryside of Al-Hasakah, in an attack whose circumstances are still unclear at this moment.

According to military field sources in the area, the attack took place near the Hittin junction opposite Kaziyat al-Hafyan, where an explosion targeted the bus killed one of its members and injured 10 others, after which they were transferred to al-Hasakah hospitals for treatment.

At the time of writing,  the  Syrian Ministry of Defense has not issued any official statement on its platforms or through the "Media and Communication Department", nor has it announced a final outcome or details about the nature of the attack or the party that carried it out, and what is available is limited to initial field accounts, in light of the usual security secrecy in such incidents that occur within sensitive contact areas in the northeast of the country.

Private sources told "Syrian News" that the competent authorities have begun field investigations at the site of the targeting, including collecting evidence and determining the nature of the device or weapon used, amid the possibility of the involvement of armed cells active in the vicinity of the international road, an axis that has recently witnessed similar security incidents claimed by the "Islamic State" organization.

Rise in attacks by the "states" organization in the eastern region

Over the past months, the eastern province has witnessed a turbulent security landscape, in which the Islamic State—responsible for widespread abuses and serious crimes—appears to be regaining its breath through a series of successive operations, stretching from al-Hasakah to Raqqa and Deir al-Zour, and taking on a bolder and more organized character than in the previous two years.

Since May 2026, the features of this escalation began to become clear with the ambush carried out by the group's cells near the Al-Aliya silos in the countryside of al-Hasakah, when they targeted a military bus belonging to the Ministry of Defense on the international road. The attack, which killed two soldiers and wounded others, brought back to the fore the group's traditional method of striking military convoys on vital roads, the same tactic that was repeated in today's offensive in the area.

In mid-June 2026, operations moved to another level with the return of suicide bombings to the heart of Raqqa city, as on the evening of June 15, an ISIS member blew himself up inside the headquarters of the Internal Security Command, killing and wounding three others.

Less than 24 hours later, on June 16, the group claimed responsibility for the bombing of the sticky bomb targeting the head of the Justice Palace in Babila, Damascus, in an attack that appeared to be part of a chronologically and field-related chain.

Previous attacks by the Islamic State

In February 2026, the area of al-Sabahiya, west of Raqqa, witnessed one of the deadliest attacks, when the group's cells attacked a security checkpoint, killing 4 members and wounding two, and the attack coincided with an audio recording of an ISIS leader calling for a "new phase of operations", which observers considered an early announcement of the escalation we are seeing today. 

In April 2026, Deir Ezzor was on the verge of a wave of assassinations targeting isolated points and small patrols in the vicinity of the desert, one of which resulted in the death  of 5 local forces fighters, and  these operations, which were adopted by the organization through the "Amaq" agency, came as part of a clear tactic based on exhausting the forces deployed in the wide, low-density areas.