IS loses ground in Syria town after major attack

BEIRUT: The IS group lost ground on Saturday in a town on the Syrian-iraqi border after pro-government 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 proregime forces pushed back the militants, 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 militant 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 combatants, the monitor said.

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