Daesh infiltrates Palmyra (Homs) and emerges sporadically in Idlib
- Introduction
- Palmyra (Homs), Daesh's other safe zone in Syria
- Daesh in Idlib
- Daesh's response to the meeting between Trump and Al Sharaa
- Conclusions
- Bibliography
The eastern part of Homs has been an unstable area for years. The attack on US forces in Palmyra highlights the latest example of Daesh's terrorist violence in a province in western Syria, which, being the largest, has hampered the effective deployment of the new Syrian Army, especially in the eastern desert area, where the attack on members of the US Army took place by an organisation that knows the area very well and has infiltrated it, before and after its territorial defeat in Baghuz in 2019.
The case of Idlib is different. Despite the occasional presence of cells, Daesh never exercised any control over this province, either before, during or after the false caliphate, but it carried out a bloody attack in December, killing four members of the internal security forces and negatively impacting the new government's image of security.
Before explaining why these two attacks may be related, it is necessary to study the two provinces separately to understand Daesh's operational capacity there in recent years.
Introduction
Since the false caliphate was defeated militarily in the final battle of Baghuz (Deir Ezzor) in March 2019, its remnants have not disappeared, and those who were able to flee did so mainly to the surrounding areas of the provinces of Deir Ezzor, Raqqa and Hasaka, but also to the desert area of Homs. In Deir Ezzor, it demonstrated its greatest resilience during these years, constantly attacking the Syrian Democratic Forces or Bashar's Syrian Army and allies on the banks of the Euphrates River.
However, Homs was not far behind, and although the attacks since 2019 were not of the same magnitude as those in Deir Ezzor, they were during 2023 and 2024 in particular, surpassing the former province in terms of the number of deaths, as will be seen below. This demonstrated the terrorist organisation's operational and infiltration capabilities in the eastern desert area of the province and around the city of Palmyra.
Homs, and specifically the Palmyra desert, also witnessed a meeting between regional Daesh leaders in the midst of the HTS military offensive. The meeting was held to establish a strategy in response to the events that were unfolding, particularly with regard to the warring factions entering the desert areas of the province, which served as a refuge for members of the terrorist organisation.
From March 2019 to December 2024, the organisation caused thousands of deaths in north-eastern and western Syria, many of them in Homs. In December 2024, the last mass killing took place when Daesh detected more than fifty Syrian Army soldiers in the desert area, fleeing the offensive carried out by Hayat Tahrir al Sham at the end of November 2024.
Once the offensive by HTS and its allies was over, with Al Golani entering Damascus and Bashar's Syrian Army dismantled, Daesh had to redefine its objectives in the province. While in Deir Ezzor, Hasakah and Raqqa, they made it clear in their attacks that the Syrian Democratic Forces remained their target, outside the areas of Kurdish influence, the intensity of attacks was not going to be the same during this last year, decreasing considerably compared to the more than 200 attacks carried out during 2025 in Deir Ezzor.
Palmyra (Homs), Daesh's other safe zone in Syria
When talking about Palmyra and its relationship with Daesh, it is important to always point out one important issue. During its territorial expansion in Syria and Iraq in early 2014, the terrorist organisation never managed to conquer Homs, the capital of the province of the same name, or most of it, only managing to control the city of Palmyra and the desert area of Al Sukhnah in the east. It is in these places that the organisation has been particularly lethal since 2019, especially during the last three years.
In 2023, there were 58 attacks against the Syrian Army, pro-Iranian allies and civilians, causing 245 deaths, surpassing Deir Ezzor, which had 187. Daesh thus demonstrated its highly lethal capacity, with attacks that sometimes exceeded in death toll those carried out anywhere in the northeast, such as the one that took place in February of that year in the Al Sukhnah desert against a group of civilians collecting truffles and the Syrian soldiers protecting them, killing a total of 53 people.
Bashar's allies, the National Defence Forces, also suffered many attacks in the area, one of the deadliest being carried out in November of that year, in which the terrorist organisation killed more than 34 militiamen travelling at night on a road in eastern Homs.
In 2024, the death toll rose even further, with 102 attacks causing 324 deaths among military personnel and civilians. The attacks became more sophisticated, including the use of Syrian Army uniforms to attack a military convoy of the pro-Iranian Liwa al-Quds militia, which was transporting weapons and ammunition, capturing them while killing three of the convoy's members, which shows that military convoys became an easy target for the terrorist organisation in desert areas, especially around Palmyra.
The attacks continued, and some were very similar: routes used by Syrian and allied forces and militias, which the terrorist organisation knew perfectly well, allowing it to prepare ambushes, probably with information from collaborators in the area. One example was the attack in late October 2024 on a broken-down military bus in the Al Sukhnah desert, which was then attacked by the terrorist organisation, killing twelve soldiers.
Shepherds were another target; not only did they steal their livestock, but on many occasions they also killed them. If anyone knows the depths of the desert region or Badiya, it is the locals and shepherds of that area. There are many examples of killings of the latter, the latest taking place in late December in the vicinity of Palmyra, when six shepherds were killed and their livestock stolen.
Between 2023 and the end of 2024 alone, according to data from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the terrorist organisation caused 569 deaths in the province of Homs.
During 2025, Daesh significantly reduced its operational capacity in Palmyra, focusing its attacks mainly on the north-east. However, it has carried out several attacks, the most significant of which was carried out by a soldier who infiltrated the Syrian Security Forces, killing two marines and an interpreter.
Daesh in Idlib
Idlib has been a hostile province for Daesh. Since the beginning of its expansion in Syria in early 2014, it lost its intended territorial control of that area when it faced the then Al-Nusra Front. Idlib was controlled by Al Nusra's successor, Hayat Tahrir al Sham, from 2017 to 2024, which took measures to prevent Daesh from establishing itself in Idlib, carrying out, according to expert Aaron Y. Zelin, 62 operations during that period, but this did not prevent successive leaders of the organisation from seeking refuge in the province or nearby areas very close to the Turkish border, where they were killed by US forces, among others.
In Barisha (Idlib), on 26 October 2019, the first leader of Daesh, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was neutralised. His successor, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, was killed on 3 February 2022 when he detonated an explosive device he was carrying as his home in the town of Atmeh (Idlib), also close to the Turkish border, was surrounded by American forces.
Finally, the fourth leader of the terrorist organisation, Abu ala-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi, was killed in Idlib by HTS, according to a statement by the Daesh spokesperson on 2 August 2023, although months earlier, in early April of that year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkish intelligence had killed the Daesh leader in Afrin.
It is noteworthy that the leaders of the terrorist organisation tend to seek refuge in the border areas of Idlib and its surroundings. Sources from the Euphrates Post even placed the current leader, Abu Hafs al-Hashemi, in hiding in that area before attending a meeting in Palmyra (Homs) during the summer of 2024.
As for the terrorist organisation's attacks in Idlib, since 2017 they have been few and far between, but one of them was highly symbolic. In early April 2024, in the town of Sarmada, a visitor carrying a concealed explosive device approached the guest house where the leader of HTS, Abu Maria al-Qahtani, was staying, with the intention of giving him an Arab sword. Once in front of him, he detonated the device, killing him instantly.
The second deadly attack in Idlib occurred more than a year and a half later, when four members of the new government's Internal Security Forces were killed by machine-gun fire.
Following the victory against Bashar's Syrian Army, a large part of Al Sharaa's military and bureaucratic apparatus in Idlib moved to Damascus, which Daesh took advantage of to emerge in the area for one basic reason: the security vacuum that inevitably arose as a result of this displacement.
The urgent need for personnel caused by the increase in territory to be controlled following the fall of Bashar's army forced rapid institutional reconstruction and accelerated recruitment of personnel to control the conquered areas, which means that the filters for this recruitment may not work as they should, leading not only to radical elements becoming part of the new Syrian Army, but also to the existence of areas in large provinces that cannot be reached by members of this Army in reconstruction. Daesh has been able to take advantage of both reasons in some provinces to emerge in the absence of total control, establishing safe havens in areas of Homs and emerging sporadically in Idlib.
Daesh's response to the meeting between Trump and Al Sharaa
Ahmed al Sharaa, in his strategic vision of realpolitik, made 21 visits abroad, most of them with clear political and economic implications. In October, he travelled to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin, but undoubtedly the most significant trip was the one he made in November to the United States to hold a meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump.
During this meeting, it was announced that Syria was joining the International Coalition to defeat Daesh, while the sanctions imposed on Bashar's regime were definitively lifted, above all with the aim of encouraging international investment in Syria with a view to rebuilding the country.
The organisation's response after these meetings was swift, with a harsh criticism of Ahmed al-Sharaa's government published on 11 December in Al-Naba, Daesh's official propaganda outlet, because they believed it was submitting to foreign powers.
Two days later, as mentioned above, US forces were machine-gunned in Palmyra, and the following day there was a similar attack in Idlib against a patrol of internal security members of the new government. This could be interpreted as a response by the terrorist organisation to the meeting and rapprochement between the two leaders at the White House, attacking US forces in Palmyra on the one hand and Al Sharaa's security forces in Idlib on the other.
The reaction of the US and Al Sharaa military forces was swift. On 19 December, the US launched an attack on dozens of Daesh targets in central Syria. Meanwhile, internal security forces, in coordination with the Anti-Terrorism Service, arrested the cell responsible, among other things, for the attack on Maaret al-Numan.
Conclusions
The terrorist organisation is not only a persistent threat in north-eastern Syria. In the centre of the country, it has maintained a latent presence, especially in the vicinity of Palmyra, to the extent that, in April, it carried out checks in the vicinity of the city, causing a situation of general alarm.
The inhabitants of Palmyra have not forgotten 2015, when Daesh established itself in the city, instilling a regime of widespread terror. Since their withdrawal in 2017, their members have fled to the eastern desert of the province, carrying out hundreds of attacks in recent years.
During 2025, in contrast to previous years, attacks have been minimal, which may lead to a misleading situation of false inactivity, in contrast to the more than 300 deaths in 2024.
Security is the backbone of the new government; without it, the state would be a failed one. Diplomatic contacts seeking investment by Al Sharaa and his ministers are aimed at economic reconstruction, but for this to happen, Syria must be a safe country throughout its territory, which is why the single command of the new Syrian army is so important to Ahmed Al Sharaa. As this article was being completed, it was reported that Al Sharaa's forces had spread to areas that were previously under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces, such as Raqqa and eastern Deir Ezzor.
To conclude, in line with the security problems in some areas of the new Syrian Army, we have the opinion of the international analyst and expert on Daesh activity in Syria, Professor David Odalric de Caixal i Mata, who highlights a structural risk that should not be underestimated:
"The organisation's ability to infiltrate and adapt within new power structures, in this case, the emerging Syrian Army. Daesh's accumulated experience shows that its strategy is not limited to territorial control, but prioritises the penetration of state institutions, taking advantage of reorganisation processes, amnesties, militia integration and control vacuums.
In a post-conflict or military reconfiguration context, infiltration is particularly plausible due to the heterogeneity of the combatants, the lack of robust verification mechanisms and the political urgency to stabilise the country. Daesh has demonstrated in the past a remarkable ability to camouflage its operatives, whether through false identities, apparent loyalties or the exploitation of tribal and sectarian affinities.
In short, the Syrian case illustrates how Daesh's military defeat does not equate to its disappearance, and how its capacity for infiltration remains one of the main challenges to medium- and long-term stability in Syria and the Middle East.
Luis Montero Molina, Master's Degree in International Geostrategy and Jihadist Terrorism
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