ANTAKYA, Turkey — Clandestine media activism continues to provide invaluable information on Syria’s Deir ez-Zor region, inaccessible to international journalists but central to the fight against the Islamic State.

Key figures tend to be found and targeted there more than in the capital of the transnational jihadist enterprise, Raqqa. The mastermind behind the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was reportedly IS’ “emir of war” in Deir ez-Zor prior to returning to Europe. 

Tunisian national Abu Sayyaf, a financier and senior figure in IS’ illicit oil and gas activities, was killed in a US raid there in mid-May and his Iraqi wife Umm Sayyaf was captured. The former local IS governor of the Deir ez-Zor province, Amer Rafdan, was killed by a coalition airstrike in northeastern Syria in July.

Meanwhile, civilians unable or unwilling to leave the area continue to suffer atrocities committed by “several sides,” one activist with family members still living there told Al-Monitor. Like most of those who spoke to Al-Monitor, he asked that his name be withheld for security reasons.