Report: ISIS loses last villages near Golan Heights

Jerusalem: Islamic State was driven out from the last major villages it still held near the Golan Heights – in an area called the Yarmouk Basin , according to the Syrian regime and local websites.

The ISIS affiliate group, Jaysh Khalid bin Walid, has held the area for several years but has only clashed with Israeli forces once. In mid-July the Syrian regime, after defeating the rebels near the Golan, attacked ISIS with a major offensive. Syrian regime media SANA claimed that the last group of ISIS fighters had been defeated in the town of Shajarah. The report indicated that regime forces swept along the Golan border cease-fire fence, pushing ISIS from the villages of Abidin and Maariyah and taking back the whole border area with Israel.

On the other side of the ISIS pocket, regime forces forced their way into Qusayr, near a small dam, and attacked Beit Arrah near the border with Jordan.

There is a deep valley there and ISIS members were driven from the villages into the bush and wadis.

“The operation was carried out with combat units and special tactics [so] that the terrorist organisation lost the ability to maneuver,” the regime said. Suicide bombers tried to target the Syrian soldiers, but were stopped with “heavy losses to equipment and personnel.” Damascus claimed that in its campaign against ISIS near the Golan Heights it had come across American-made TOW anti-tank missiles, Israelimade food and “remnants of the so-called ‘White Helmets.’” The Syrian regime has repeatedly tried to push the narrative that paints ISIS as part of a USIsraeli-Syrian rebel conspiracy created by the West.