Four oil facility guards killed in an attack near Syria's Deir ez-Zor, state media says

Four oil facility guards were killed in an attack on a bus on a highway east of Syria's Deir ez-Zor, state news agency reported on Thursday. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

The military personnel, part of an army contingent securing the Teim oilfield, were returning home after their shift at the major site west of Deir ez-Zor province, when their vehicle was hit near the town of Salo on the highway east of Deir ez-Zor, a security source told Reuters.

The incident is the deadliest since Assad’s fall in the eastern province, which produces most of Syria’s oil and wheat. Three months ago, ISIS sleeper cells attacked a police station in Mayadeen.

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The latest attack occurred near Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)-controlled areas east of the Euphrates, where skirmishes and tensions between government forces and the SDF have risen in recent days.

The region lies along the border with Iraq and is divided by the Euphrates River between areas controlled by the state and the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led SDF, which controls Syria’s oilfields east of the river.