A bomb exploded in a café in Damascus, Syria, Thursday, killing six and wounding nearly two dozen others. Authorities have confirmed that the explosion was caused by an improvised explosive device (IED). While no one has claimed responsibility, such attacks have generally been the provenance of ISIS, a terror organization with an extremist interpretation of Islam that disapproves of the way Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is observing the religion.

The attack highlights the fragility of Syria’s security apparatus as al-Sharaa tries to stitch together a country fractured by years of friction between various factions and the oppression of the Assad regime.

When Syrian rebels swept into Damascus and deposed Bashar al-Assad, large-scale pockets of fighting continued to break out between Syrian forces and smaller minority groups such as the Kurds, Alawites and Druze over the past two years, which have at times been characterized by human rights groups as massacres by Syrian forces against minority groups. While that has subsided, smaller operations by groups such as ISIS using IEDs, as in today’s bombing, as well as targeted assassinations, have posed a constant threat.