The US-led coalition has carried out an air strike to block Daesh group fighters evacuated from Lebanon from reaching eastern Syria, its spokesman told AFP on Wednesday. “To prevent the convoy from moving further east, we cratered the road and destroyed a small bridge,” Col. Ryan Dillon said, adding that the coalition had conducted an air strike.
Hundreds of Daesh fighters were evacuated Monday from the border region between Lebanon and Syria under a cease-fire deal and were headed to an IS-held town Syria’s eastern frontier with Iraq.
Fierce fighting between Syrian government forces and the Daesh group has killed 64 combatants in Raqqa province over a 24-hour period, a monitoring group said Wednesday. The clashes come with the army pressing an advance through Raqqa, in northern Syria, toward neighboring Deir Ezzor, the only remaining province of the war-ravaged country still in the hands of Daesh jihadists.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said the fighting had claimed the lives of 38 jihadists and 26 pro-regime combatants since Tuesday morning. It takes to 145 the overall death toll in six days of fighting in villages on the banks of the Euphrates River in the east of Raqqa province, near Deir Ezzor.
Daesh said in a statement on Tuesday that its members had killed dozens of regime combatants in “intense fighting lasting hours.” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that the regime was fighting to secure a foothold in Raqqa province “in order to advance in Deir Ezzor.”
The jihadists have laid seige to government forces and civilians in the provincial capital of Deir Ezzor since 2015. Earlier this month, government troops and allied fighters arrived at the outskirts of Madan, the last Daesh-held town in the countryside of eastern Raqqa province before Deir Ezzor.
But Daesh launched a counterattack last week that pushed the regime forces back, and fighting has since continued. The Syria army operation in the area, backed by air support from ally Russia, is separate from the battle for provincial capital Raqqa city. The effort to oust Daesh from the city is being led by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters.
The US-led international coalition aircraft carried out more than 120 air strikes on the city of Raqqa in the last two days, Qasioun News reported on Sunday. The news agency stated that the international coalition air force carried out over 120 air strikes on the city of Raqqa in the last two days, leaving dozens of civilian casualties, in addition to killing one of the General Hospital’s doctors.
The Islamic State-held neighborhoods are suffering difficult humanitarian situation, especially with the lack of medical services, after the international coalition aircraft bombarded the only hospital in the city. Meanwhile, Syrian Democratic Forces militias attacked, at dawn today, the Islamic State headquarters near al-Rasheed garden in the city of Raqqa, and clashes broke out between the two sides in the IS-held areas. It is noteworthy that Syrian Democratic Forces militias managed to recapture more than 60% of the city since the start of the offensive in June 2017.
One of the fighters of the Islamic factions died of injuries sustained during clashes with the regime forces and their allied militiamen in the northern countryside of Homs. Airstrikes also hit areas in Al-Sukhna eastern dessert in the eastern countryside of Homs. Airstrikes accompanied clashes between ISIS on one hand and the regime forces and their allied militiamen, of Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities, on the other. Such clashes came as a result of an attack by the regime forces on the area.
One of the fighters of the Islamic factions died of injuries sustained during clashes with the regime forces and their allied militiamen in the northern countryside of Homs. Airstrikes also hit areas in Al-Sukhna eastern dessert in the eastern countryside of Homs. Airstrikes accompanied clashes between ISIS on one hand and the regime forces and their allied militiamen, of Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities, on the other. Such clashes came as a result of an attack by the regime forces on the area.