11.01.2021, Damascus.
Unknown persons assassinated Sheikh Atliush on January 11 in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor, a Rossa Primavera News Agency’s source in Syria informed.
According to the source, the assassination occurred in Hawaij village near Ziban town in eastern Deir ez-Zor. The assassins on a motorcycle shot the sheikh and his son. Atliush was killed, and his son was wounded.
90-year-old Sheikh Atliush was one of the elders of the Al-Aqidat tribe. Several influential members of the tribe have been killed in recent months, sparking large demonstrations of protest in the region demanding that the perpetrators be found and that the banks of the Euphrates be secured.
Sheikh Atliush had great influence among the local tribes, particularly in resolving disputes between the different tribes.
Background
In 2020, most of the fighting in the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR) has been localized to several areas in the Idlib province where peace had not come yet to Syrian soil.
All participants in the civil war in Syria, except for the government forces as well as Russian and Iranian forces which support the army of Assad, are accustomed to using sabotage as a way of warfare, planting explosive devices to blow up vehicles and infrastructure.
Terrorists from groups like ISIL (an organization banned in Russia) continue to use such methods. Most of the time, their attacks are aimed at Kurds in the Syrian regions to east of the Euphrates River. However, the “sleeping” cells of Islamists are trying to organize terrorist attacks in the areas that have long been liberated by the Syrian army.
Militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (organization banned Russia), internationally recognized as a terrorist group, and their accomplices from the “moderate opposition” groups regularly plant IEDs into vehicles during conflicts with each other when fighting for the zones influence in the terrorist-controlled province of Idlib. Similar sabotage strategy was used against Assad’s army by US-trained fighters and militant groups controlled by the US military.
Eventually, Kurds from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) also began to plant bombs into vehicles used by opposing militants during their guerrilla war. Kurds started using guerrilla war tactics against the pro-Turkish “moderate opposition”, and the Turkish soldiers brought into Syrian soil after losing part of their territories in the area near the city of Afrin to the east of the Euphrates River. The SDF lost this territory during Turkish Olive Branch and Peace Spring Operations in 2018 and 2019. As a result, terrorist attacks involving car bombings or IEDs occur in Syria almost daily. Some of them lead to casualties of opposing each other militants only, but, often ordinary Syrians also suffer from explosions.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
