Analysis: ISIL attacks could undermine US-Syria security collaboration

Analysis: ISIL attacks could undermine US-Syria security collaboration ISIL attacks dropped after the fall of the Assad regime. But the group will likely attempt to destabilise Syria’s new government. On December 13, a joint US-Syrian patrol was ambushed by a member of Syria’s own security forces near Palmyra, a city in central Syria once controlled by the ISIL (ISIS) group. Two US soldiers and an interpreter were shot dead, and four people were wounded, before Syrian forces killed the gunman. Recommended Stories list of 3 items list 1 of 3 A father’s fight to find out what happened to his son who joined ISIS list 2 of 3 Aleppo clashes expose hurdles in SDF’s integration into Syrian army list 3 of 3 Explosion at mosque in Syria’s Homs kills at least eight In the aftermath of the attack, US and Syrian officials linked the attacker to ISIL, which once controlled vast swaths of Syria and Iraq, and promised to retaliate. The incident highlights the growing cooperation between the United States and Syria against ISIL, particularly after Damascus joined the US-backed coalition against the group in November. While it is still unclear if the attacker was a member of ISIL or another group opposed to US-Syrian relations, analysts say that cooperation between the two countries is strong and growing stronger. “The Syrian government is responding very robustly to fighting ISIL following US requests to do so, and it is worth noting that HTS [Hayat Tahrir al-Sham], before it was in government, had a long-term policy of fighting ISIL,” Rob Geist Pinfold, a scholar of international security at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera, referring to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s former group. “It [HTS] did it in Idlib, and cracked down on insurgents and cells, and this is more a continuation of that policy.” Syria’s Minister of Interior spokesman, Noureddine al-Baba, told Syria’s Al-Ikhbariah TV that there was no direct chain of command to the gunman within Syria’s internal security forces, and that he was not part of the force tasked with escorting the US forces. Investigations are under way, he added, to determine whether he had direct ties to ISIL or adopted violent ideology. ISIL attacks down In May 2015, ISIL took over the city of Palmyra from the former Syrian government. Famous for its Greco-Roman ruins, the city bounced back and forth between regime forces and ISIL until the group was expelled in 2017. In May 2017, the US-led coalition also forced the group out of Raqqa, which ISIL had declared the capital of its so-called caliphate three years earlier. Many surviving ISIL fighters were imprisoned in the al-Hol and Roj camps in northeast Syria, controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Others escaped into the Syrian desert around Palmyra, from where they have occasionally launched attacks. When the regime of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fell on December 8, 2024, analysts said ISIL fighters used the ensuing chaos to go into various cities across the country. In June,...

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