ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Tuesday announced the arrest of “an ISIS leader,” following a clash in Deir ez-Zor that left one SDF fighter dead and two injured. The fighters also thwarted a suspected ISIS attack in the nearby town of Abriha.

SDF-affiliated forces “succeeded in arresting a leader of one of the terrorist ISIS cells in the town of Darnaj in the eastern Deir ez-Zor countryside, after a clash that resulted in his injury and arrest,” the SDF said in a statement, adding that one of its fighters was killed in the attack and two more were injured.

The Kurdish-led troops have not yet revealed the identity of the alleged ISIS leader.

Separately, the SDF also managed to repel a planned ISIS offensive on a security checkpoint in Abriha, eastern Deir ez-Zor, followed by a search operation in the area.

“In the town of Abriha, cells of the terrorist organization attempted to attack a security checkpoint using motorcycles and machine guns, but our fighters confronted the attack and foiled it,” the forces asserted, noting that the thwarting attempts were “followed by a sweeping operation to ensure the security and stability of the area.”

The clashes follow another deadly ISIS attack on SDF positions on Saturday, also in Deir ez-Zor’s town of Abriha, that killed four SDF members.

These incidents add to a recent surge in ISIS activity in northeast Syria since Bashar al-Assad’s fall, with the militant group seeking to exploit the instability in the region. The group primarily operates in the remote desert areas of Homs and Deir ez-Zor provinces.

According to data revealed by the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), 190 ISIS attacks have been recorded in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES)-controlled areas since the beginning of the year.

The war monitor reported that the attacks have so far led to 65 deaths among the SDF ranks, 12 ISIS members and 13 civilians.

ISIS took control of swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory in 2014, declaring its so-called caliphate with the Iraqi city of Mosul as its capital. They were territorially defeated with assistance from the US-led coalition forces in Syria in 2019.

The US-backed SDF functions as the de facto army of northeast Syria and currently controls one-third of the country’s overall territory.