At least 20 gunmen of the Islamist State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group were killed in the second failed terrorist attack in a month to take over an air base in Eastern Syria, an opposition monitoring group said.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that ISIL tried, starting late Saturday, to storm the air base, and a total of 20 militants were killed in the attack, as well as two Syrian soldiers, AFP reported.
Nineteen of the ISIL members were Syrian, while one was Moroccan. All were killed in fighting and heavy army shelling.
The attack was the second recent attempt by ISIL to take over the Deir Ezzur military air base.
Deir Ezzur is located on the border with Iraq, where ISIL also occupies swathes of territory.
Activists report it rules the people under its control through a reign of terror.