Five plots to kill Syrian president or ministers were foiled last year, says UN

Syria's president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, salutes during celebrations to mark the first anniversary of the ousting of Bashar al-Assad in December. Photograph: Omar Sanadiki/AP

Five separate plots to assassinate Syria’s president or his senior ministers were foiled last year, the UN has said in a report on Islamic State.

According to the report, the Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, was targeted twice, once in northern Aleppo and another time in southern Daraa, by Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah, an IS front group that carried out a bombing of a church in Damascus last summer.