Syrian troops take villages east of Euphrates River

BEIRUT» Syrian government forces on Sunday briefly captured four villages east of the Euphrates River in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour after rare clashes with U.S.-backed Kurdish-led fighters, then lost the area in a counteroffensive by the Kurdish-led force.

The area close to the border with Iraq has been the site of recent clashes between the two sides that had been focusing on fighting the Islamic State extremist group. The IS had declared its caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq.

Crossings into the east bank of the Euphrates in eastern Syria by government forces have been rare.

In a separate development, Syrian state television reported a “new aggression,” with missiles targeting a number of military outposts in northern Syria.

Syrian TV reported early Monday that the missiles targeted outposts in the Hama and Aleppo countryside.

It did not say who fired the missiles or whether there were any casualties or damage. The news comes less than two weeks after a similar report of airstrikes on government military installations in the central Homs region and the suburbs of Damascus. But the military later said a false alarm had set off air defense systems.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria through activists on the ground, reported loud explosions in the Hama countryside and Aleppo province resulting from missiles targeting a base of the 47th Brigade in Hama that houses Syrian government and allied Iranian forces. It also reported missiles hitting positions near the Nairab air base and Aleppo airport. It said the source of the missiles was not immediately known, and had no information on casualties.