A blast targeting a bus in Syria’s eastern province of Deir Ezzor on Thursday killed at least five defence ministry personnel, news agency AFP reported, quoting an official.“An explosive device detonated as a bus carrying oil facility guards affiliated with the defence ministry passed by, killing five of them and wounding 13 others, including civilian bystanders,” the official said, as quoted by AFP.State television reported that the blast hit a bus on the road between Deir Ezzor and Mayadeen, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) away.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, but the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack was “likely affiliated with an Islamic State (IS) group cell.”IS, which once controlled large areas of Iraq and Syria, was territorially defeated in Syria in 2019 by the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with support from an international coalition.The group still operates in Syria’s desert regions, mostly targeting Kurdish-controlled areas in the northeast.During Syria’s civil war, which began in 2011, IS carried out similar attacks on buses targeting forces loyal to former president Bashar al-Assad.Since the Islamist-led authorities took power after Assad’s December ouster, attacks by jihadists on government-controlled areas have been rare.In May, IS claimed its first attack on the new authorities, with the Observatory reporting one Syrian army member killed and three others wounded.The following month, authorities accused IS of a suicide attack on a Damascus church that killed 25 people, although the group did not claim responsibility.