Syria’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that a Syrian army soldier and a civilian were killed a day earlier by “unknown assailants” in the northern city of Raqqa.
ISIS claimed responsibility for two attacks targeting Syrian army personnel in northern and eastern Syria.
The militant group said on its Dabiq news agency that it had targeted “an individual of the apostate Syrian regime” in the city of Mayadin in Deir Ezzor province using a pistol, and attacked two other personnel with machine guns in Raqqa.
The attacks came after ISIS blasted Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, calling him a “puppet without a soul” controlled by Western countries, adding that his fate eventually will be similar to that of ousted leader Bashar Assad.
In an audio message released late Saturday by the group’s spokesman, who identifies himself as Abu Huzaifa al-Ansari, he called on ISIS followers around the world to attack Jewish and Western targets as they have in past years.
The group also said it had begun a “new phase of operations” in Syria.
Al-Ansari sent greetings to ISIS militants from the group’s leader Abu Hafs al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi who was named as the head of the group three years ago.
The audio is the first to be released by the group in months and comes after ISIS was blamed for attacks that left dozens dead or wounded in recent months in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and other parts of the world.
The latest incidents come two days after ISIS claimed responsibility for another attack in Deir Ezzor that killed a member of the Interior Ministry’s internal security forces and wounded another.
In December, the group was blamed for an attack in central Syria that left three Americans dead and triggered intense US airstrikes on the extremists’ suspected hideouts in the country.
