Army battles crucial militant stronghold
BEIRUT — Syrian government forces pushed into one of the last remaining urban strongholds of the Islamic State in the country’s east Friday, after days of fierce fighting and intense Russian air strikes that involved cruise missiles from the Mediterranean, activists and officials said.
The push into the town of Mayadeen came as al Qaedalinked fighters attacked a key central Syrian village at the crossroads between areas under government control and those controlled by insurgents, activists said.
Taking Mayadeen would mark another blow to the extremist group, which has lost wide areas of Iraq and Syria in its self-declared caliphate over the past year.
Fierce battles are still expected in the town that over the past months became one of the extremists’ main centers after losing other strongholds in Iraq and Syria.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in Britain, Syrian forces and allied militiamen entered western parts of Mayadeen, including the town’s wheat silos compound and the sheep market.
The Russian state RIA Novosti news agency quoted a Syrian army general as saying that the Syrian forces have fought their way into Mayadeen. The agency quoted the unidentified officer as saying that the army entered the western neighborhoods of the town on Friday.
Syria’s state news agency SANA said troops killed many Islamic State fighters on the western outskirts of Mayadeen and captured western parts of the town. The Russian Defense Ministry announced its submarines fired 10 cruise missiles on Thursday at Islamic State positions outside of Mayadeen.
Air strikes on the town and nearby areas over the past days have killed and wounded scores of people, including 15 civilians — women and children among them — who were killed when a missile slammed into a government-held neighborhood in the city of Deir el-Zour on Thursday evening.
In central Syria, the attack on the village of Abu Dali in Hama province was led by al Qaedalinked Hay’at Tahrir al Sham — Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee. It came two weeks after insurgents attacked a nearby area where three Russian soldiers were wounded.
Earlier this week, Russia’s military claimed the leader of the al Qaeda-linked group was wounded in a Russian air strike and had fallen into a coma. The military offered no evidence on the purported condition of Abu Mohammed al-Golani.
The al Qaeda-linked group subsequently denied al-Golani was hurt, insisting he is in excellent health. The group’s fighters have been gaining more influence in the northwestern province of Idlib and northern parts of Hama, where they have launched attacks on rival militant groups, as well as areas controlled by the government.