Syria says it foiled a plot on the Homs refinery and held two ISIS members in Deir Ezzor

Syria's General Intelligence Service said on Sunday it had foiled a “terrorist plot” to attack the Homs oil refinery, one of the country's two main refineries, the state news agency SANA reported in accounts carried by Shafaq News and APA.

An intelligence source said the plot was uncovered through surveillance and intelligence gathering and that the group behind it sought to “undermine Syria's economic security and disrupt residents' daily lives”. The group's identity was not disclosed and investigators were still pursuing leads. The Homs refinery, which supplies diesel, fuel oil and kerosene to the domestic market, had a distillation unit with a capacity of one million tonnes a year restored in October.

Separately, the internal security forces announced the arrest of two members of ISIS in Deir Ezzor after “close intelligence surveillance”, Arab News reported, citing AFP. The two are accused of a series of assassinations in the province, the latest targeting defence ministry member Ibrahim al-Jassem in the city of Mayadin.

The authorities blamed ISIS for a bombing in Damascus during French President Emmanuel Macron's visit in July and said they had dismantled the cell responsible. A report to the UN Security Council that month estimated the group still has about 3,000 fighters in Syria and said several attacks on officials, including President Ahmed al-Sharaa, had been thwarted.