Reports: Suspected drone strike in Syria kills at least 3

A local activist collective, Deir Ezzor 24, reported that the building was being used as a base for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

However, Syrian state media claimed that a mine “abandoned by terrorists” – a term often used by the government for opposition forces fighting on Assad’s side in the war – exploded in the area, killing three people and killing seven. were injured. The state media reports showed photos of a multi-storey building collapsed and reduced to rubble, as well as a wrecked truck.

Syria’s 12-year civil war has killed at least 300,000 people and displaced half of the country’s 23 million population.

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 and Syrian government forces with their Russian and Iranian allies, control the area. However, IS sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks there.

Previous attacks on Iranian and Iran-affiliated targets in eastern Syria have been blamed on the United States or Israel, although the latter rarely acknowledges its involvement in such attacks.