ISIS retakes Syrian border town

U.S., Russia agree to push political solution to civil war there

BEIRUT — Syrian opposition activists said fighters of the Islamic State group have regained control of a town near the border with Iraq that the government said it captured last week.

Boukamal, the last major Islamic State stronghold in Syria, was taken by government soldiers and their allies on Thursday. Islamic State militants withdrew from the town and launched a counteroffensive over the past two days.

Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Omar Abu Laila, a Europe-based opposition activist originally from Syria’s eastern province, said Saturday that Islamic State fighters are now once again in full control of the town.

Separately, President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to support a political reconciliation in Syria with the participation of President Bashar Assad while maintaining the existing two-nation communication channels used to fight the Islamic State.

The leaders are satisfied with the “successful U.S.-Russia” military efforts that have “dramatically accelerated” the group’s battlefield losses, according to a joint statement issued after the leaders met briefly on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam.

“These efforts will continue until the final defeat of Islamic State,” according to the statement. A U.S. official who requested anonymity said the joint statement shows both leaders back a political solution and peace process.

While Russian support has kept Assad in power, helping Putin expand Russian clout across the region, the U.S. is seeking to have influence in any plan to help the nation recover from years of civil war.

“There is no military solution to the conflict in Syria,” according to the statement. “The ultimate political solution to the conflict must be forged through the Geneva process” under United Nations resolutions.

The U.S. official, speaking to reporters at a briefing in Danang, Vietnam, said Russia and the U.S. agreed to get Assad to the peace process in Geneva.

The leaders reaffirmed the importance of de-escalation zones as an interim measure to reduce violence in Syria and called upon all U.N. member states to increase their contributions to meeting humanitarian needs in the country. The U.S. official said additional agreements with Jordan had strengthened one zone in the south.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it intercepted an unmanned aircraft Saturday that tried to infiltrate its airspace from neighboring Syria.

The military said the drone was operated by the Syrian regime and was shot down using a Patriot missile in the demilitarized zone between the countries.

In September, Israel shot down an Iranian-made drone, sent by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, in the same area. Both Iranian and Hezbollah forces have been backing Assad in the Syrian civil war.

Israel has warned that it will not accept a permanent presence of Iran or its allied militias near its border in postwar Syria. Israel says that it expects any agreement ending the war in Syria to include a 12-mile buffer zone meant to keep away Iranian-backed militants. Israel has been closely watching Iran’s involvement in the war in neighboring Syria. It fears Iran could use Syrian territory to stage attacks on Israel, or to create a land corridor from Iran to Lebanon that could allow it to transfer weapons more easily to Hezbollah.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel viewed Saturday’s drone incident gravely and would respond to any provocation.