US strikes kill 43 in Daesh-held Syria area

Regime takes back last holdout of terror group in south; 22 regime troops killed near Idlib

At least 40 people, mostly women and children, were killed yesterday by US-led air strikes on the last pocket held by Daeshmilitants in eastern Syria, a war monitor and Syrian state media reported. Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Britainbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the early yesterday air strikes hit homes in Abu Al Hassan village, near the town of Hajin, which lies along the border with Iraq.

This came as Syrian regime forces yesterday took back control of Daesh’s last holdout in southern Syria after months of fighting, a war monitor said. Regime forces retook Tulul Al Safa, between the provinces of Damascus and Sweida, “after Daesh fighters withdrew from it and headed east into the Badia desert”, the Observatory said.

Meanwhile, extremists on Friday killed 22 regime fighters near a planned buffer zone around Syria’s last major rebel bastion of Idlib, the Observatory added.

A September deal between regime ally Russia and opposition backer Turkey aimed to set up a demilitarised zone around the northwestern region to protect it from a regime assault. But its implementation has been stalled since extremists who hold around 70 per cent of the planned buffer zone failed to withdraw by mid-October, and intermittent clashes have since rocked the area.

–Agencies