Nearly a dozen people were killed and another wounded in an attack targeting a bus carrying workers in an oil field in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr on Thursday, according to local reports.
Syria’s official news agency SANA called it a “terrorist attack” and said the victims were workers of al-Kharata oil field, located 20 kilometres (12 miles) southwest of the provincial capital.
Quoting a reporter stationed in Dayr al-Zawr, the Syrian news agency said a Daesh terrorist group staged an ambush on two buses carrying the oil workers while they were returning from work.
“While returning from al-Kharata oil field, an armed terrorist group attacked the workers, killing 10 and injuring another,” provincial governor Fadel Najar told the SANA reporter.
Daesh Takfiri terrorists have been active in the oil-rich region of Syria notwithstanding the heavy deployment of US-led coalition forces claiming to fight the extremists.
The terrorists have, with the connivance of foreign troops, managed to regain foothold in the region after being defeated by the Syrian army in 2019.
They have carried out several attacks in the province, attacking government forces from hideouts in the expansive Syrian Desert that stretches all the way from the Damascus outskirts to the Iraqi border.
Last month, a deadly ambush carried out by the Daesh terrorist group killed more than a dozen Syrian government forces in Dayr al-Zawr province.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) at the time said the attack took place in Masrib area, situated in the western flank of the province, which it said killed “at least 13 members of a local pro-government group and wounded others.”
The Britain-based watchdog said the incident took place when fighters were conducting a combing operation in the area.
In another incident on November 14, a Syrian army general and four soldiers were killed in an attack in eastern Syria.
SOHR said a bomb exploded close to the vehicle carrying five troops in Dayr al-Zawr province.
The attacks come as the US military has stationed forces and military equipment in eastern and northeastern Syria, with the Pentagon claiming that the deployment is aimed at preventing the oilfields in the area from falling into the hands of Daesh terrorists.
Damascus, however, says the unlawful deployment is meant to plunder the country’s rich resources.
Former US president Donald Trump admitted on several occasions that American forces were in the war-ravaged country for its oil.
After failing to oust the Syrian government with the help of its proxies and direct involvement in the conflict, the US government has now stepped up its economic war on the Arab country.
Attack on Iraqi village
An attack by Daesh terrorists on a village in northern Iraq on Friday killed at least 13 people including three villagers and 10 Kurdish forces, officials in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region said.
The attack took place in the Makhmour region, a hotbed for Daesh activity that sees regular attacks against Kurdish forces, Iraqi forces and often civilians.
Makhmour is a mountainous area some 70 km southeast of Mosul and 60 km southwest of the Kurdish capital of Erbil.
A statement from the Kurdistan region's Peshmerga forces said that Daesh militants attacked the village killing three residents and that Peshmerga forces intervened, resulting in clashes that killed 10 of their soldiers.
Daesh controlled roughly a third of Iraq between 2014 and 2017, including the remote Makhmour region but also major cities including Mosul.
The Iraqi army defeated the Takfiri group in 2017 with the help of popular militias, but its members still roam areas of northern Iraq and northeastern Syria.
At least 10,000 Daesh terrorists reportedly remain in Iraq and Syria.