IS Jihadists Lose Ground in Syria Town after Major Attack

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The Islamic State group had lost ground Saturday in a town on the Syrian-Iraqi border after pro-regime forces repelled a major attack the day before, a Britain-based monitor said.

Violent clashes were ongoing in Albu Kamal, which lies in the Euphrates Valley in eastern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

"IS has retreated from inside the town to its western and northwestern parts" after pro-regime forces pushed back the jihadists, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Pro-government reinforcements had arrived, he said.

On Friday, IS used at least 10 suicide bombers in its offensive on Albu Kamal, swiftly taking several of its neighbourhoods, the monitor said.

It was the biggest attack on the town since the jihadist group lost it in November 2017, and the latest in a string of attacks by IS across Syria.

Neither Syrian state media nor the army reported Friday's attack on Albu Kamal.

The fighting in the town over the past 24 hours has killed 30 pro-regime fighters, the Observatory said.

These include 16 regime troops among them a general, as well as 14 non-Syrian combattants, notably Iranians and Lebanese Hezbollah movement fighters, the monitor said.

Twenty-one IS jihadists were also killed in that same period, including the 10 suicide bombers, according to the same source.

IS has ramped up its attacks against pro-regime forces since its fighters in May left their last bastion near Damascus under an evacuation deal with the regime.

IS in 2014 proclaimed a cross-border "caliphate" in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, but has since lost most of its territory to various military offensives.

Its presence is mostly confined to pockets of eastern Syria in the vast desert stretching from the country's centre to the border with Iraq.

Earlier this week, IS assaults in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor killed 45 pro-regime fighters.

On Thursday, IS jihadists also killed 22 pro-regime fighters in surprise attacks in the southern province of Sweida, a monitor said.

Comments 2
Thumb roflmfao 09 June 2018, 16:39

When the IS and Hezbollah Jihadists are promised virgins what they are not told is that many of them are the virgins. An IS Jihadist could end up with an all harem of Hezbollah Jihadists and vice versa. Saint Peter is having a hell of a time restocking virgins he's now recycling Jihadists. All this pressure in getting to him. I have a feeling he might crack soon, hand in his resignation and go off into the countryside denying for the fourth and final time that he ever knew anything or anyone. Maybe take up fishing again.

Thumb shab 09 June 2018, 22:42

More yellow body bags...lovely