BEIRUT: At least three people were killed in an explosion in eastern Syria on Wednesday.
A war monitoring group said the explosion was likely caused by a drone strike that targeted Iran-backed militiamen.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack in the area and reports about what happened were incomplete.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based opposition war monitor, said four people were killed in the attack, which hit an Iran-backed militiamen housing building in Deir al-Zour province. It has been said that eight people were injured.
A local activist collective, Deir Ezzor 24, reported that the building was used as a base for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
However, Syrian state media claimed that “a mine left by terrorists” – a term often used by the government for opposition forces battling Assad’s side in the war – detonated in the area, killing three people and Seven were injured.
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows a crater following an explosion at a building in Deir al-Zour, Syria, March 8, 2023 (SANA via AP).
Government media reports showed pictures of a building in which several floors had collapsed and turned into rubble, as well as a destroyed truck.
Syria’s 12-year civil war has killed at least 300,000 people and displaced half the country’s population of 23 million.
The militant Islamic State group once had a stronghold in much of northeastern Syria as part of its so-called caliphate.
Today, several groups, including US-backed Kurdish-led forces as well as Syrian government troops, control the region along with their Russian and Iranian allies. However, IS sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks there.
Previous attacks on Iranian and Iranian-linked targets in eastern Syria have been attributed to either the United States or Israel, although the latter rarely acknowledges its involvement in such attacks.
