Airstrikes in east Syria kill Iran-backed fighters

Four of 7 DAESH escapees recaptured

BEIRUT, May 18, (AP): Unknown warplanes attacked Iran-backed fighters in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border, killing several of the Iraqi militiamen, Syrian opposition activists said Sunday.

The strikes late Saturday targeted a base near the border town of Boukamal, killing seven fighters, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor.

Omar Abu Laila, a Europe-based activist from Syria’s eastern Deir el-Zour province, confirmed a strike hit Iran-backed Iraqi fighters in the area but had no exact word on casualties. The strikes came days after reinforcements were brought into the area from Iraq, the Observatory and Abu Laila said.

Abu Laila, who runs Deir Ezzor 24, an activist collective that reports on news in the border area, said Israel was most likely behind the attack, but gave no evidence.

Israel rarely comments on such reports, although it has acknowledged carrying out airstrikes inside Syria on numerous occasions over the course of Syria’s nine-year conflict, saying it was going after Iranian military targets in the country.

There have recently been several reports of suspected Israeli strikes inside Syria, including one on May 4 that left 14 Iranian-backed fighters dead, according to the Observatory.

Meanwhile seven members of the Islamic State group escaped from a small prison in northeast Syria on Sunday, with four recaptured and a search continuing for the remaining three, said Syrian state media and an official with the main Kurdish-led U.S.-backed force in the region.

The militants fled from a jail on the edge of the town of Al-Hol, home to a sprawling camp where tens of thousands of IS wives, widows and children live, said state news agency SANA and a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, Mervan Qamishlo. The prison is separate from the camp.