Internal Security Forces raided a site in the town of Al-Sanamayn in the Daraa countryside on Thursday where an armed group affiliated with ISIS was holed up, after tightening the siege around the group and giving its members a deadline to surrender, which they did not heed. The Internal Security Forces said through their official channels that the security operation in Al-Sanamayn was ongoing, confirming that the outlawed armed group was affiliated with ISIS. The forces said they had tightened the siege around the group and given its members a deadline to surrender, but they did not respond, prompting the raid on the site where they were holed up. Earlier on Thursday, three members of the Internal Security Forces were killed and others were wounded in a clash with an armed group in the town of Al-Sanamayn in Daraa Governorate, southern Syria, while carrying out a security raid targeting a wanted individual, according to a statement issued by the Internal Security Forces. Member of an ISIS cell being arrested in Daraya, Damascus countryside (File Photo - SANA) A government source said that an "outlawed armed group led by the wanted individual" had "targeted the patrol and engaged its members in a firefight while they were carrying out the mission." It added that security forces had deployed throughout the town to pursue members of the group and announced a "temporary curfew" there. A local government source told Agence France-Presse that the wanted individual who clashed with the security forces belonged to the group. The group carries out attacks from time to time, particularly against Syrian security forces, after urging its members to fight the new authorities following the ouster of former President Bashar Al-Assad in December 2024. The Syrian government officially joined the international coalition against the extremist group late last year. The group's presence in Syria was concentrated in the north and northeast and in the Badia region, but it also maintains cells in the south. The group announced in 2022 that its leader, Abu Al-Hassan Al-Hashimi Al-Qurashi, had been killed in fighting whose date it did not specify. It later emerged that the fighting had taken place in Daraa Governorate.
