30 killed in ISIL attack on Syrian city

Fiercest assault on Deir Ezzor in more than a year

BEIRUT // More than 30 Syrian regime fighters and extremist militants were killed yesterday in one of ISIL’s fiercest assaults on the besieged Syrian city of Deir Ezzor. The attack, on a day with many outbreaks of violence across Syria, came as the political opposition said it backed upcoming peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana.

The negotiations will seek to bring an end to the six-year war by building on a fragile truce agreement.

But ISIL is excluded from the deal, brokered by rebel backer Turkey and regime ally Russia.

Unleashing a wave of suicide attacks, rockets and tunnel bombs, ISIL killed at least 12 government fighters and two civilians in Deir Ezzor yesterday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

It said 20 extremists were killed in air raids by Syrian and allied warplanes on the city, where about 200,000 people have lived under ISIL siege since early 2015.

“Daesh is amassing its forces to attack Deir Ezzor and breach government lines,” a Syrian military source said.

ISIL has tried to overrun the city, including the military airport near by.

The Observatory said yesterday’s attack was the most violent ISIL assault on the city in more than a year.

Elsewhere in Syria, the ceasefire deal was under increasing strain yesterday with air raids in the north-west and clashes near the capital.

The air strikes on the town of Maarat Masrin in Idlib province killed eight people, most of them civilians, the Observatory said.

On Friday, three civilians, including a child, were killed in strikes on the nearby town of Orum Al Joz.

Idlib province is controlled by a rebel alliance led by Jabhat Fatah Al Sham, the former Syrian branch of Al Qaeda which changed its name from Jabhat Al Nusra after renouncing ties with Al Qaeda last year.

Like ISIL, Fatah Al Sham is excluded from the truce deal.

Clashes also broke out yesterday in Wadi Barada, the main source of water for Damascus.

Supplies from the area to the capital and its outskirts have been cut since December 22 last year because of fighting. Rebels and government troops reached an agreement on Friday to restore water access, but regime forces and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hizbollah breached the agreement yesterday by launching a rocket attack on a town in Wadi Barada.

Syria has been ravaged by violence since widespread protests in March 2011 calling for president Bashar Al Assad’s removal developed into a fullscale uprising. More than 310,000 people have been killed and more than half the population have been displaced, but Moscow and Ankara are hoping that the peace talks in Astana this month will lead to a political solution.