UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Syria’s president, interior and foreign ministers were the targets of five failed assassination attempts last year, the U.N. secretary-general said in a report released Wednesday on the threat from Islamic State militants.
Reports said President Ahmed Salat was under attack in northern Aleppo and southern Daraa, the country’s most populous provinces, by a group called Saraya Ansar al-Suna, which was assessed as a front for the Islamic State group.
The report, issued by Secretary-General António Guterres and prepared by the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Office, gave no dates or details of the attempts to target Sala or Syrian Interior Minister Anas Hassan al-Khattab and Foreign Minister Assad Shibani.
The report said the assassination attempt is further evidence that the armed group still intends to undermine the new Syrian government and “actively exploit the security vacuum and uncertainty in Syria.”
The report states that frontline organizations provide the Islamic State with reasonable deniability and “enhanced operational capabilities.”
Sharal has led Syria since rebels he led overthrew longtime Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, ending a 14-year civil war.
Sala was previously the leader of Tahrir al-Sham, a group that had ties to al-Qaeda but later severed ties.
In November, his government joined the international coalition formed to fight the Islamic State group, which once controlled much of Syria.
United Nations counterterrorism experts said the armed group is still operating across the country, mainly attacking security forces, especially in the north and northeast.
On December 13, U.S. and Syrian troops encountered an ambush near Palmyra, killing two U.S. service members and one U.S. civilian, and injuring three Americans and three members of the Syrian security forces. President Donald Trump retaliated by launching a military campaign to eliminate Islamic State militants.
According to United Nations counter-terrorism experts, the “Islamic State” organization has approximately 3,000 militants in Iraq and Syria, most of whom are stationed in Syria.
In late January, the U.S. military began moving Islamic State detainees held in northeastern Syria to Iraq to ensure they remained in secure facilities. Iraq said it would prosecute the militants.
Syrian government forces have taken control of a sprawling camp housing thousands of Islamic State detainees after the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces withdrew as part of a ceasefire with Kurdish forces.
A report to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday said that as of December, before a ceasefire was agreed, more than 25,740 people, more than 60 percent of them children, remained in the northeastern camps of al-Hol and Roj, with thousands more in other detention centres.
