Local pro-regime pages announced killing a senior officer of the regime forces with the rank of major general, along with a number of officers and personnel near Palmyra city in the eastern countryside of Homs, amid conflicting reports about the reasons for his death.

The "Homs Pulse of the Street" page stated that Major General Jawdat Nazeer Shaabu was killed with a number of his elements, including a lieutenant colonel named Alaa Ibrahim Al-Najjar, because of explosion of an explosive device planted by ISIS near the city of Palmyra, east of Homs.

According to the opposition Orient Net, the page stated that Major General Shaabo had gone on a "military mission" west of Palmyra in the countryside of Homs, accompanied by eleven members of Al-Assad militia to fight ISIS in the area, but they all died.

Whereas, a relative of Major General Shaabo published a picture of the obituary on the 15th of this month, explaining that Shaabu, commander of the Palmyra garrison of the regime forces, had passed a natural death, adding that the aforementioned spent his life in "goodness and piety," as they claim.

However, the dissident Brigadier General Omar Al-Asfar revealed in a post on his Facebook page on the 17th of this month that the aforementioned decided that an explosive device had been planted in his car exploded, to spend with a number of the officers who were accompanying him.

The brigade of Al-Asad Jawdat Shaabu militia had previously been subjected to an assassination attempt in front of his house in Damascus in 2012 and was subsequently transferred to the hospital.

Shaabu was retired, but he was returned to serve in Al-Assad militia to take over the position of commander of the Palmyra garrison.