DAMASCUS, Aug 23, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A suicide attack on Friday at a security checkpoint in Syria's east killed one police officer, state media said, blaming the bombing on the Islamic State group (IS).

A second would-be assailant was killed by security forces, the official news agency SANA reported.

"A suicide bomber of the terrorist organisation Daesh attacked the Siyasiyeh checkpoint" in the eastern Deir Ezzor province, SANA said, using an Arabic acronym to refer to IS.

"The forces at the checkpoint killed one of the assailants, but the second one blew himself up," it reported, adding that "a member of the internal security forces was martyred in the suicide attack".

IS seized large areas of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, before being territorially defeated in Syria in 2019, but has since maintained sleeper cells in remote desert areas and continues to carry out sporadic attacks.

On Saturday SANA reported that a car bomb exploded in Damascus without causing casualties.