The raids, launched by the General Security Department in coordination with the General Intelligence Service, targeted multiple Daesh sleeper cells operating across Aleppo, Syria’s Ministry of Interior said in a statement on Saturday.
One security officer was killed in the operation, it said.
Forces stormed the site and seized “explosive devices, an explosive vest and a number of General Security force uniforms”, the statement added.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the operation took place in Aleppo’s Haidariya district and that clashes also broke out in another neighbourhood.
Interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who assumed power in Damascus in December, has long opposed ISIL. His forces battled the group’s self-declared caliphate during the Syrian war.
US President Donald Trump met al-Sharaa this week in Saudi Arabia and described him as an “attractive guy with a very strong past”.
Following the meeting, Washington announced that it would lift sanctions on Syria – a major policy shift and boost for al-Sharaa’s transitional government.
Al-Sharaa seized power in Damascus in December after his forces toppled Bashar al-Assad in a lightning offensive. Al-Sharaa cut ties with al-Qaeda in 2016.
The recent operation comes just months after Syrian authorities said they had foiled an Daesh bombing plot near the Sayeda Zeinab shrine, a key pilgrimage site for Shia Muslims south of Damascus.
