Report: Five attempts to assassinate Sharia thwarted

The Washington Post quoted a United Nations report that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Interior Minister Anas Khattab, and Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani were the targets of five assassination attempts that were thwarted over the past year.

According to the newspaper, Thursday, February 12, the information was based on a report prepared by the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism and submitted by the Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, to the Security Council, in which he addressed the threats that the Islamic State (ISIS) continues to pose in Syria.

Targeting in Aleppo and Daraa

According to the report, al-Sharaa was a major target of the organization, and was subjected to attempts to target in the north of Aleppo governorate, and in the southern province of Daraa.

Attempts, according to the report, were attributed to a group called the Ansar al-Sunna Brigades, believed to be a front for the Islamic State.

These attempts are further evidence that the group continues to seek to undermine the new Syrian government and is actively exploiting security vacuums, despite the political transitions that Syria has witnessed since the end of 2024.

He considered that Sharia is a major target of the organization, pointing out that the use of the front group gives ISIS the ability to deny and improve its operational capacity.

The report did not include precise dates or details on the nature of the assassination attempts or the mechanisms to thwart them.

3 thousand fighters and continuous activity

Last November, the Syrian government joined the international coalition to combat the Islamic State, which had previously controlled large swathes of Syrian territory.

According to UN experts, ISIS still maintains about three thousand fighters in Syria and Iraq, most of whom are stationed inside Syrian territory, with its attacks focused on security forces, especially in the north and northeast, according to the Washington Post.

The report pointed to an attack on December 13 near Palmyra, targeting US and Syrian forces, killing two American soldiers and a US civilian, and wounding three Americans and three members of the Syrian security forces, followed by a US military response targeting ISIS positions.

In late January, the U.S. military began transferring detainees from Islamic State who were detained in northeast Syria to Iraq to ensure they remained in safe facilities, while Baghdad announced it would try the militants.

The report submitted to the UN Security Council stated that until last December, before the conclusion of the ceasefire agreement between the Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), more than 25,740 people were still detained in the camps of al-Hol and Roj in northeast Syria, 60% of whom were children.

Previous Announcement

The United Nations report is not the first indication of attempts to target President Al-Sharaa, as Reuters reported in November 2025 that the Syrian authorities had foiled during the months two separate attempts of the Islamic State group that were aimed at assassinating him.

The agency quoted two sources as “the two”, one Syrian and the other from a country in the Middle East, as saying that one of the attempts targeted an official event announced in advance, which was scheduled to be attended by Sharia, without revealing additional details, given the sensitivity of the issue.

The Syrian Ministry of Information declined to comment on the news when the agency contacted it.