On 7th August, state media SANA quoted the Interior Ministry as saying two Daesh militants were killed in Damascus’s Sayyidah Zaynab area of the Damascus countryside after they were found planting an IED near the area.

During a night patrol on roads leading to the military barracks and government facilities, the militants were found, the ministry said.

The ministry said that security officers noticed two people standing by the road, wearing masks, and went to verify their identities. The suspects fired, resulting in a shootout, during which both died, it said.

The men have then been caught planting an IED and were preparing to attack a Government facility. 

In addition, more explosive devices and weapons were found in their possession, and investigations verified their connection with the Daesh terrorist group.

In recent months, the ministry said the Internal Security Forces, in collaboration with the General Intelligence Service, have thwarted “a number of Daesh plots.

The incident comes amid a continuing Syrian campaign against Daesh networks. Security forces detained on July 29 several suspected members of Daesh in coordinated raids in Aleppo and Al-Bab, the town, in both locations, seizing explosives, IEDs and weapons, SANA reported. The operation was aimed at destroying the hideouts and stopping any attacks by the group, authorities said.

Earlier, the Interior Ministry stated that Daesh was behind the bombing of Mar Elias Church in Damascus in June 2025 that resulted in 25 civilian deaths and 63 injuries. The ministry indicated that the group has taken advantage of the security collapse caused by the collapse of the previous regime’s security and military apparatus to bring in armed fighters from the Syrian desert into urban areas and to pick up weapons and explosives from abandoned stockpiles.

The ministry added that Daesh also intended to attack the shrine of Sayyidah Zaynab, with the aim of using the incident to stir up sectarian hatred against Shiite worshippers and Christians. Based on it, during the past few months, the Syrian government had been able to arrest 1,300 members of the terrorist organization named Daesh (ISI), and they had also been successful in destroying 34 groups of Daesh.

Based on the information that was released by the ministry on July 9, they had been able to dismantle several Daesh groups operating in the southern part of Syria, and had also been successful in arresting one of its members, Firas Al-Dagher. The authorities have said that the Daesh cells were assassinated and robbed using guns in Daraa in order to fund the operations of the Daesh group.

The above operation clearly shows the threat of Daesh cells in Syria despite all the pressure on the authorities.