Russians killed in militant raid in Deir al-zour, Syria

Russia, Turkey ink pipeline agreement, to end gas dispute

MILITANTS in the eastern Syrian province of Deir al-zour have killed four Russian combatants.

Two military advisers died when the Syrian army battery they were directing was attacked. Five other Russians were injured and two died later of their wounds, the defence ministry said.

Syria’s army took Deir alZour city last November but Islamic State fighters remain active in the province.

Officially Russia has lost about 90 personnel in the Syrian civil war.

Scores of military contractors have also died since Moscow began its intervention in support of President Bashar al-assad in September 2015.

The Rianovosti agency said that “a few mobile terrorist groups” had attacked the Syrian army’s artillery battery during the night.

The injured are being treated at a Russian military hospital.

The defence ministry in Moscow said its forces had killed 43 militants in the fighting.

The Uk-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said Islamic State fighters had carried out the attacks and that 35 pro-government troops were killed, including nine Russians.

As well as holding pockets of IS fighters, Deir al-zour province also marks a division between areas held by Syrian government forces and Syrian Kurdish units, including the Us-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. After seven years of war, the Syrian government, backed by Russian and Iranian military muscle, now controls much of central Syria, including the second city, Aleppo.

Rebel forces are now concentrated in Idlib.

Over seven years of war, more than 400,000 people have been killed or reported missing, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

More than half the population of 22 million have been driven from their homes with at least 6.1 million Syrians internally displaced, and another 5.6 million living abroad, the vast majority of them in neighbouring countries, such as Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Russian state gas giant Gazprom said it had signed a protocol with the Turkish government on a planned gas pipeline and agreed with Turkish firm Botas to end arbitration dispute over the terms of gas supplies.

The protocol concerned the land-based part of the transit leg of the Turkstream gas pipeline, which Gazprom said meant that work to implement it could now begin.

Turkey had delayed issuing a permit for the Russian company to start building the land-based parts of the pipeline, which, if completed, would allow Moscow to reduce its reliance on Ukraine as a transit route for its gas supplies to Europe.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said earlier on Saturday Turkey and Russia had reached a retroactive agreement for a 10.25 per cent discount on the natural gas Ankara buys from Moscow.

Gazprom said in the Saturday statement, without elaborating, that the dispute with Botas would be settled out of court.