The Turkish intelligence agency MIT asked the British spy agency MI6 in February to help protect Syrian provisional President Ahmad al-Sharaa amid Islamic State efforts to kill him, Reuters reported March 6. Whether MI6 has done so remains unclear.

Al-Sharaa has been the target of multiple assassination attempts since taking power in late 2024, with MIT and Syria's intelligence announcing just March 5 that they had foiled a plot against him in Damascus. The Islamic State has begun to resurge in Syria with the withdrawal of U.S. forces and the dismantling of the Syrian Democratic Forces, once the country's most capable counterterrorism forces. Though the provisional government has so far been able to thwart attacks, it has yet to develop a unified, professional security or military establishment capable of controlling the entire country.