A suicide bomber targeted a group of Syrian police officers in the city of Aleppo killing one member of the security forces and wounding two others, the official news agency SANA reported.

Syria’s Interior Ministry spokesman Noureddine al-Baba told Al-Ikhbariah TV that the original target of the attack on Wednesday was likely a church gathering in the city’s Bab al-Faraj neighbourhood.

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“We were able to thwart this attack, although unfortunately the martyrdom of one of our colleagues is a great loss,” al-Baba said.

The Aleppo governorate administration said the assailant blew himself up after officers approached to detain him.

“The relevant authorities are continuing to investigate the circumstances of the incident and have imposed a security perimeter around the site,” it said.

Azzam al-Gharib, the governor of the province, said security forces observed the “terrorist agent” and tried to arrest him while securing New Year’s Eve celebrations in the city.

“One of the security officers managed to physically restrain him. At that point the terrorist detonated his explosive belt,” al-Gharib said in a statement.

The wounded officers are receiving treatment at a hospital, he added, without providing details about their condition.

No group has claimed responsibility for the suicide blast in Aleppo so far.

The incident, hours before the New Year arrived, follows the bombing of an Alawite mosque in Homs that killed at least eight people on Friday.

Syria, led President Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former rebel commander, has been facing mounting security challenges after more than 13 years of civil war that ended late in 2024 with the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

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On Sunday, deadly clashes erupted between Alawite demonstrators and counter-protesters that erupted across several coastal regions. Al-Assad – who fled to Russia after the armed opposition took over the capital Damascus in a lightening offensive – is a member of Syria’s Alawite minority community.

Separately, earlier this month, US forces carried out strikes across central Syria against what they said were ISIL (ISIS) remnants after a gunman from the group killed two American soldiers and an accompanying civilian translator.

Sporadic clashes have also been breaking out between government forces and the Kurdish-dominated Syria Democratic Forces who control the much of the northeast of the country.

In southern Syria, Israel has been expanding its occupation beyond the Golan Heights, regularly setting up checkpoints in Syrian towns, carrying out raids, and abducting and disappearing Syrian citizens without provocation.