This post is also available in: العربية
During the past period, Daesh has relatively increased its attacks on Assad forces and Iranian militias’ positions and posts in all over Deir Ezzor badiyah. After each one of those attacks, the Russian and Iranian militias and Assad forces launched a campaign to comb the attacked sites.
Activists from Deir Ezzor see these campaigns following Daesh attacks, that kill and injure members of Assad’s forces and militias, as nothing but a reaction to be relieved from blame, and to show people supporting Assad regime, that the army is “pursuing terrorists”, because just few days after each campaign, the group launches new attacks, killing more members, whom Assad regime prepared to be fuel for this mission.
Daesh pockets, which it takes as a springboard for its attacks, spread in all over Deir Ezzor badiyah on the southern bank, which is controlled by Assad’s forces, Iranian militias and the Russians. After the group withdrew from populated areas of Deir Ezzor in late 2017, it found itself a place to regroup its ranks, but all that was facilitated by the forces that took control of the region, led by Iranian militias, for several objectives, the most important of which is that Daesh presence in Deir Ezzor badiyah gives Iran a legitimacy in front of the international community to stay in Deir Ezzor, which has become the most Syrian province containing various Iranian militias.
The other objective is to use Daesh, which has become more like a mercenary institution carrying out attacks for money and arms, to strike the other side on the northern bank of Deir Ezzor, namely the international coalition and the SDF, as Assad regime and Iranian militias have facilitated, more than once, the movement of Daesh groups from the southern bank (areas controlled by Assad’s forces) to the northern bank of Deir Ezzor, where the international coalition has presence, to strike stability in those areas and keep the coalition busy with confronting Daesh.
Assad and Iran go on in these farces in front of their supporters and the international community by sacrificing some of their members in Daesh attacks to prove that they are in Syria to fight terrorism.