Daesh terrorists almost encircled in Syrian desert: Monitor
Regime ‘ready to confront any illegitimate forces, whether Turkish or American’
BEIRUT: The Syrian regime’s troops have seized more territory from Daesh in a central desert region, almost entirely surrounding its fighters there, a monitor said on Friday.
Backed by Russian warplanes and pro-government militias, the Syrian army has made considerable progress in its months-long offensive to retake the Badiya.
The vast desert region, which stretches from the country’s center to the Iraqi and Jordanian borders, has been held by Daesh since 2014.
“The regime managed to encircle the area of Okayrbat and the surrounding 44 hamlets, straddling the central provinces of Hama and Homs,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syria’s official SANA news agency also reported that Okayrbat had been surrounded.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the Syrian regime had taken control of the last supply route for arms, ammunition and equipment in the area.
It said the terrorists were seeking to flee toward their stronghold of Deir Ezzor to the east.
“The Russian air force is continuously conducting reconnaissance drone flights ... to find and destroy armored vehicles, pickup trucks with heavy weapons and cars used by the terrorists,” it added.
Regime troops have also seized four gas fields in the central desert, the British-based Observatory said.
Victory over Daesh in the region is seen as key to the army’s hopes of retaking Deir Ezzor, the last Syrian province that remains nearly completely under Daesh control.
Bouthaina Shaaban, an adviser to Syrian President Bashar Assad, said the war was nearly over, and vowed the government would confront any “illegitimate” forces, whether Turkish or American.
Shaaban said the fact that Syria was staging the Damascus International Fair for the first time in the war “sends a message that the war has ended ... and we are at the start of the path toward reconstruction.”
The war has reached its “penultimate stage” as foreign powers that backed the opposition change their policies, Shaaban said in comments to Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV carried on Syrian state news agency SANA.
US President Donald Trump has ended the US Central Intelligence Agency’s CIA’s support to opposition groups fighting to topple Assad. Turkey, long one of the main opposition backers, has also shifted its priority away from ousting Assad, seeking to mend ties with Russia and curb Kurdish expansion near its border.
“Just as we defeated terrorism, we will fight any illegitimate presence on our land, whether it’s the US or Turkey,” Shaaban said. “And this is among the challenges we will face at the right time in the right way.”
US forces based in northern Syria are helping Kurdish-led militias push Daesh out of Raqqa city. Washington also has a garrison in the southeast Syrian desert, near a strategic highway border crossing with Iraq, to train local insurgents to battle Daesh.
Shaaban said this week’s Damascus trade fair and regional participation proved a “U-turn was achieved” in the conflict, a shift the Syrian army and allied forces were imposing since they seized Aleppo city late last year.
Still, the multi-sided conflict has raged on along several fronts across the country, with Daesh losing ground to various separate enemies.