Islamic State fires shells at Syrian dam, forces engineers to halt work
Bus bombing in Homs kills five, wounds six
TABQA DAM/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State shelled positions held by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces at the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates River on Wednesday, forcing engineers to temporarily halt efforts to ease the water pressure, a witness told Reuters.
The jihadist group fired from the southern end of the dam, which it controls, and at least two explosions were heard. No one was injured. The engineers, who are working to open the spillways to relieve water pressure in the dam, later returned to work.
The SDF, an alliance of militias including the Kurdish YPG and Arab fighters, last week captured the northern part of the dam, which is a major strategic objective of the US-backed campaign to isolate and capture the Islamic State-held city of Raqqa, some 40 km. to the east.
The engineers were also at the dam on Tuesday carrying out an assessment as they tried to open the two spillways, one of which is half open and the other is completely shut.
The SDF and US-led coalition have said the dam is not in danger after the Syrian government on Sunday said it had been damaged by US air strikes and could collapse, with the risk of catastrophic flooding.
Islamic State has also said the dam’s operating systems were not working properly and it was vulnerable to collapse.
The head of the Kurdish YPG militia, fighting in the Raqqa campaign as part of the SDF alliance, has said the final assault on the city will begin in early April.
In the government-held city of Homs, a bomb blast hit a passenger bus at noon on Wednesday, killing five people and wounding six, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, also said that at least five people were killed in the attack.
SANA’s correspondent in Homs said the bombing, which it said was carried out by terrorists, targeted a small passenger bus on a street in al-Zahra neighborhood.
The agency quoted the Homs health director as saying the bombing killed five people and wounded six.
Government-held cities have been hit by a series of bombings in recent weeks, including in Homs, where an attack that included blasts and shooting killed dozens of people in February including a senior security official.
Scores of people were killed in suicide attacks in Damascus earlier this month, including twin bombings on March 15 at a central courthouse and a restaurant, and a blast days earlier near an important Shi’ite shrine.
After some of the attacks in recent weeks, the jihadist rebel group Tahrir al-Sham, whose main component is al-Qaida’s former Syrian branch Nusra Front, said it had been behind the blasts.
Analysts have predicted that as jihadist rebels fighting to oust President Bashar Assad suffer military reverses, they will increasingly turn to guerrilla-style attacks in territory controlled by the government.