Islamic State kills five Kurdish fighters in eastern Syria

CAIRO (Reuters) - The Islamic State militant group said on Monday it killed five Kurdish fighters in an attack in eastern Syria's Deir el-Zor, according to the group's news agency.

The spokesperson for Syria's Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces Farhad Shami confirmed to Reuters that five members were killed in the attack which he described as "one of deadliest" against the group in a while.

Deir el-Zor city was captured by the Islamic State group in 2014, but the Syrian army retook it in 2017.

The militant group imposed hardline Islamist rule over millions of people in Syria and Iraq for years.

Former Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate over a quarter of the two states in 2014 before he was killed in a raid by U.S. special forces in northwest Syria in 2019 as the group collapsed.

It has been recently trying to stage a comeback in the Middle East, the West and Asia.

(Reporting by Menna Alaa El Din, Jaidaa Taha and Orhan Qereman; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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