A rebel fighter monitors a street in the Old City of Aleppo yesterday. Aleppo, Syria’s second city and former industrial powerhouse, has been divided between rebel control in the east and regime control in the west since shortly after fighting began there in mid-2012.
Agencies/Beirut
Syrian government troops yesterday used chlorine gas to push back Islamic State militants trying to capture a major air base in eastern Syria, a watchdog said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that heavy bombardment and use of chlorine gas by troops of President Bashar al-Assad had forced the militants to stop their push into Deir al-Zor military airport.
The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, added that cases of suffocation had occurred among IS fighters because of the gas.
The extremists also retreated from a hill overlooking Deir al-Zor due to intense bombardment by regime warplanes.
Earlier yesterday, fighters from the Al Qaeda splinter group began storming the air base in a bid to take full control of the oil-rich region.
Head of the Observatory Rami Abdel Rahman said IS insurgents had already captured parts of the eastern side of the air base.
At least 101 extremists and 51 regime troops have been killed in clashes, air strikes and suicide attacks in the area in the past three days, according to the Observatory.
Syrian television meanwhile reported a campaign by the army against what it called “terrorists” - a term used to describe rebels fighting to oust Assad.
“Our brave troops managed to hit an Islamic State convoy near the Deir al-Zor military airport,” the broadcaster said without giving further details.
The militant group began an offensive this week to capture the air base, one of the regime’s last strongholds in the province.
Deir al-Zor lies between the IS-controlled province of Raqa and the Iraqi border. Losing the battle of Deir al-Zor would be a major blow for Assad’s regime.
Deir al-Zor would be the second Syrian province after Raqa to fall into the hands of IS, which already controls considerable swathes of territory in Iraq.
Islamic State has been under pressure from US air strikes in Syria since September, but that has not stopped it from launching attacks on Assad’s forces and other targets to expel government forces and rival rebels.
The Twitter account of the US embassy in Syria said late on Friday that a US air strike in Deir al-Zor had hit IS targets: three vehicles, an excavator and a training camp.
