TE24 International Desk:
At least 13 people, most of them government troops, were killed in an attack on a transport convoy in northern Syria on Monday morning, the country’s defense ministry said.
A service statement said 11 government soldiers and two civilians had been killed in what became known as a “psychological attack” on a non-military personnel transport vehicle. Three more soldiers were injured.
The Syrian state news agency SANA reported that the attack took place in the Jabal al-Bishari area of Raqqa. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the trap was carried out by Islamic State sleeper cells. No immediate claim of responsibility was made for the attack.
The 11-year-old conflict in Syria has engulfed the country in various areas of control, with government troops and related fighters controlling most of the area. A fix in the northwest is held by a gathering of Turkish-backed rebels and more radical groups while Kurdish-led forces in the U.S. support hold the upper east.
One of the deadliest transport ambush was in December 2020, when an attack on a primary expressway in Syria’s eastern Deir al-Zor region killed 28 people.