UNITED NATIONS (AP) \u2014 Syria\u2019s president, interior minister and foreign minister were the targets of five foiled assassination attempts last year, the U.N. chief said in a report on threats posed by Islamic State militants released Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The report said President Ahmad al-Sharaa was targeted in northern Aleppo, the country\u2019s most populous province, and southern Daraa by a group called Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah, which was assessed to be a front for the Islamic State group. <\/p>\n
The report, issued by Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres and prepared by the U.N. Office of Counter-Terrorism, gave no dates or details of the attempts against al-Sharaa or Syrian Interior Minister Anas Hasan Khattab and Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani. <\/p>\n
The assassination attempts are more evidence that the militant group remains intent on undermining the new Syrian government and \u201cactively exploiting security vacuums and uncertainty\u201d in Syria, the report said. <\/p>\n
It said al-Sharaa was \u201cassessed to be a primary target\u201d of the Islamic State. And it said the front group provided IS with plausible deniability and \u201cimproved operational capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Al-Sharaa has led Syria since his rebel forces ousted longtime Syrian President Bashar Assad in December 2024, ending a 14-year civil war. <\/p>\n
Al-Sharaa was previously the leader of Hayar Tahrir al-Sham, a militant group that was once affiliated with al-Qaida, although it later cut ties.<\/p>\n
In November, his government joined the international coalition<\/a> formed to counter the Islamic State group, which once controlled a large part of Syria.<\/p>\n The U.N. counter-terrorism experts said the militant group still operates across the country, primarily attacking security forces, particularly in the north and northeast.<\/p>\n In one ambush attack on Dec. 13<\/a> on U.S. and Syrian forces near Palmyra, two U.S. servicemen and an American civilian were killed and three Americans and three members of Syria\u2019s security forces were wounded. President Donald Trump retaliated,<\/a> launching military operations to eliminate IS fighters.<\/p>\n According to the U.N. counter-terrorism experts, the Islamic State group maintains an estimated 3,000 fighters across Iraq and Syria, the majority of them based in Syria.<\/p>\n The U.S. military in late January began transferring IS detainees<\/a> who were held in northeastern Syria to Iraq to ensure they remain in secure facilities. Iraq has said it will prosecute<\/a> the militants.<\/p>\n Syrian government forces had taken control of a sprawling camp housing thousands of IS detainees following the withdrawal of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces as part of a ceasefire with the Kurdish fighters.<\/p>\n