Kurdish-led SDF defuses ISIS car bomb near Syria’s Hasakah

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – US-backed, Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria announced on Thursday that they had safely deactivated explosives that had been attached to a vehicle outside the city of Hasakah on the previous day.

"On the 22nd of this December, the special units of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) defused a car bomb belonging to ISIS mercenaries in the town of Dashisha, as terrorist cells were trying to deliver and detonate it in Al-Hasaka," the SDF Media Center wrote in an online statement.

"Our units managed to thwart many terrorist operations of ISIS mercenaries in Al-Hasakah, Abu Khashab and Al-Raqqa during the past days, after tracking of many terrorist cells." it added.

Despite the SDF and the US-led coalition declaring the defeat of the extremist group’s so-called caliphate on Mar. 23, 2019, ISIS sleeper cells continue to carry out regular attacks in areas liberated from militants, especially in the eastern Arab-majority province of Deir al-Zor.

The SDF and US-led coalition regularly carry out operations against the militant group to prevent it from making a significant resurgence in the region.

The SDF announced earlier in the week that shelling by Turkish-backed militias outside the northeastern city of Tal Tamir on Tuesday evening killed three civilians and wounded several others, including children.

Read More: Civilians killed, children wounded in northeastern Syria by Turkish-backed shelling: SDF

The SDF also claimed that the Turkish army and armed groups supported by Ankara shelled the villages of Umm al-Kif, Rabi'at, and al-Asadiya, as well as areas in the vicinity of Zirgan (also known as Abu Rasein), north of Tal Tamir.

Additionally, the group reported that three members of the Syrian army were also injured and taken to a hospital near Tal Tamir and also that three members of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), killed by SDF shelling that was fired in response.