Syrian Security Forces Launch Arrest Campaign in Al-Mayadeen

Syria’s General Security forces launched a large-scale security campaign in Al-Mayadeen city in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor on 19 May, following the detonation of a car bomb near the police station in the city the night before.

According to sources speaking with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), 12 suspected ISIS members and two former members of Iran-backed armed groups affiliated with the former government of the ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad were arrested during the campaign.

The campaign comes as a part of strict security measures adopted in response to the car bomb, which killed four members of the police and one civilian on Sunday. Two people, including a girl, were injured.

After the explosion, security forces were dispatched to secure the area, blocking civilians from approaching the site.

According to sources speaking with SOHR, members of the General Security sealed off all entrances and exits of Al-Mayadeen entirely and began thorough inspections in search of illegal weapons due to their widespread presence among civilians.

Last week, authorities in Damascus announced in a statement that their units had successfully captured an ISIS commander.

“Our special forces (H.A.T), in coordination with the General Security Agency, carried out a special security operation at dawn on Friday, 16 May, which resulted in the arrest of one of the most dangerous members of ISIS terrorist cells in the countryside of Deir Ezzor,” the statement said.

The ISIS commander was “extremely dangerous due to his involvement in several assassinations and in destabilizing security and stability in the region. It was also confirmed that he participated in forming ‘suicide squads’ during the terrorist group’s control of the area,” the statement claimed.

Operations by ISIS cells have escalated in areas of northeast Syria controlled by the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in recent weeks and months.

SOHR has documented 14 ISIS attacks in the past two weeks in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor, where the SDF maintains only weak control.

Since early 2025, SOHR has documented 86 attacks by ISIS cells in areas controlled by the SDF, resulting in the deaths of 31 people.

Most of those attacks took place in Deir Ezzor province, targeting military posts and checkpoints, cars, houses, and shops, some of which were carried out under the pretext of “not paying zakat for the benefit of ISIS.”