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At least four people have been killed and nine injured after an explosion targeted a government-owned bus in eastern Syria, state news agency SANA said.
The explosive device detonated while the bus, belonging to the Syrian Ministry of Energy, was traveling on a road that connects Deir Az Zor and al-Mayadin, SANA reported in an X publication on Thursday.
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The four deaths were security personnel at an oil facility in Deir Az Zor, the country’s oil hub and seventh-largest city, which has been the scene of fierce battles against IS (ISIS) during the country’s devastating civil war.
Oil facility workers and civilians were among those injured in the attack, SANA added, without providing further details.
A video verified by Al Jazeera from the scene of the explosion showed several security personnel inspecting a bus damaged by a roadside bomb.
According to the Reuters news agency, the security personnel were part of an army contingent securing the Teim oil field. They were reportedly returning home after their shift at the oil facility when the blast took place.
The incident is said to be the deadliest explosion in the eastern province, which also produces most of Syria’s wheat, since the fall of ruler Bashar al-Assad last December.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
In May, an explosion killed at least three people targeting a police station in Al-Mayadin, a day after Syrian authorities said security forces killed three IS fighters and arrested four others in Aleppo.
In June, authorities also accused ISIL of being behind a deadly suicide bombing at a Damascus church that killed 25 peoplealthough the group never claimed responsibility.
During Syria’s civil war, which broke out in 2011, IS carried out similar attacks on buses targeting al-Assad’s forces.
However, since the interim government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa took power after a lightning rebel offensive, attacks on government-held areas have been rare.
The site of the latest deadly attack is also near an area controlled by the Kurdish-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) east of the Euphrates, where skirmishes and tensions between government forces and the SDF have risen in recent weeks.
The region lies along the Iraqi border and is divided by the Euphrates River between state-controlled areas and the US-backed, Kurdish-led SDF, which controls Syria’s oil fields east of the river.
In August, the Syrian Defense Ministry had accused the SDF of carrying out a rocket attack on a military position in northern Syria, injuring four army personnel and three civilians.
Internal and external concerns for al-Sharaa
The Syrian leader has been on a painstaking mission to try to unify the war-torn nation, making major strides to end Syria’s international isolation, crowned with a visit to the General Assembly of the United Nations last month, the first by a Syrian in six decades, where he called for an end to all sanctions on his nation.
Damascus is also attracting significant economic investment from the Gulf Arab nations, a key economic lifeline.
Deadly sectarian fighting in the southern province of Suwayda in July it shook the fledgling government, prompting it to deploy forces there to quell unrest between Bedouin tribes and Druze militias.
There are also external interventionist security issues to contend with, as Israel attacked Syrian positions during that fighting under the guise of protecting the Druze. But Israel carried out multiple bombings and raids on Syria before and after that, despite ongoing security talks between the two nations.
The vision of the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, of a “Greater Israel”condemned by Arab and Muslim countries, it involves hegemonic designs on Syrian territory, among others.
On Friday, SANA reported that Israeli forces carried out raids and raids in eastern al-Samadaniyah and Ofaniya in rural Quneitra.
According to SANA, the Israeli operation consisted of eight military vehicles, a heavy bulldozer and two tanks advancing from near Tal Krum Jaba to the east of al-Samadaniyah, before withdrawing hours later to the destroyed town of Quneitra in southwestern Syria in the occupied Golan Heights.
