Syrian security forces raided Islamic State hideouts in Aleppo on Saturday, killing at least one and arresting others, authorities said, the first time the Islamist-led government has announced such an operation in Syria’s second city.
A member of the security forces was also killed, a statement issued by Interior Ministry spokesperson said. The security forces seized weapons, bombs and uniforms with the security forces’ insignia.
A security source said the raids had targeted sleeper cells in four locations. One Islamic State member had blown himself up, and another had been killed in clashes, the source said.
Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al Sharaa, who once led a branch of Al Qaeda, has long been an adversary of Islamic State, and battled the group’s self-declared caliphate during the Syrian war.
US President Donald Trump met Sharaa earlier this week, and praised him as an “attractive guy with a very strong past” after the encounter in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
Trump also declared the US would lift sanctions, a major US policy shift that should help revive the shattered economy and marked a major boost for Sharaa.
Sharaa seized power in Damascus in December after the ousting of Bashar Al Assad. Sharaa cut ties with Al Qaeda in 2016.
Islamic State controlled swathes of Syria and Iraq at the height of its power, before being beaten out of the territory by enemies including a US-led military alliance.
In January, the Syrian authorities announced they had foiled an attack by Islamic State on the Sayeda Zeinab shrine in a Damascus suburb and had arrested members of the cell.
Islamic State member killed five members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in eastern Syria last month, in one of their deadliest attacks in a while.
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