Syrian troops have repelled an attack by jihadis from ISIS on a key military airport in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, anti-regime activists said Sunday.
“Troops and pro-regime militia stopped the attack that ISIS launched on the Deir al-Zor military airport,” the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding both sides suffered heavy losses.
The jihadis had withdrawn to the edges of the base, a day after managing to seize a southeastern part of the complex.
The Observatory said more than 100 jihadis had been killed in fighting for the base since Wednesday, when they launched a bid to take the airport. Pro-regime forces also suffered heavy casualties, with some 59 troops killed, it said. State news agency SANA said Syrian army units had “repelled an attempt” by ISIS fighters to attack positions at the base, but provided no further details.
Regime warplanes launched at least 11 strikes against ISIS targets in and around the city Sunday. Local activists said they targeted areas of Deir al-Zor and the outskirts of the airport, along with the nearby villages of Jafra and Hatleh. A female civilian and five children were killed in one of the strikes on a neighborhood, according to anti-regime activists based in Deir al-Zor.
The Observatory said three ISIS fighters were killed in the strikes.
Both sides have resorted to publicizing grisly images of what it says are the other side’s dead. Pro-regime Internet outlets and social media circulated a series of photos purporting to show government soldiers driving a truck filled with the corpses of ISIS fighters through Deir al-Zor, to the appreciation of residents.
Other photos show the truck, with at least a dozen bodies, then dumping its contents in a shallow mass grave.
Supporters of ISIS, meanwhile, have posted online images of a regime officer who was captured recently in Deir al-Zor, and then beheaded by the jihadis, his body put on public display in the city.
The two sides also publicized what they said were captured spoils. ISIS militants claimed they seized a large quantity of weapons and ammunition from a hilltop army facility overlooking the city, before being forced to withdraw from the site under heavy bombardment Saturday.
Pro-regime media also showed what it said were food and supplies captured from the jihadis, along with a piece of paper featuring a handwritten list of 10 ISIS fighters – Frenchmen, North Africans and a Bosnian, along with a Syrian.
The Deir al-Zor base is a key regime outpost from which warplanes and helicopters mount raids on jihadi positions in several parts of the war-wracked country.
ISIS fighters control most of Deir al-Zor province, but half of its capital remains in government hands.
Elsewhere, rebels blew up a tunnel near an ancient mosque in Aleppo, as loyalists tightened the noose around opposition positions north of the city.
The Observatory said the army secured a fresh advance, taking the area of Breij northeast of the city and killing at least 24 rebels and jihadis.
“There is a very real threat that the opposition’s supply route will be cut off,” Observatory director Rami Abdel-Rahman told AFP.
Meanwhile in the heart of Aleppo, rebels blew up a tunnel near an ancient mosque, claiming to be targeting army positions, the Observatory said.
State television also reported the explosion, and said the rebels had blown up the Sultaniyeh Mosque itself. The Observatory said the mosque was not damaged, but that 12 troops were killed in the blast.
Political contacts aimed at ending the war also picked up pace, as the U.N.’s envoy to Syria will meet in Turkey with rebel leaders from Aleppo to discuss a possible freeze in fighting in the war-torn city.
Staffan de Mistura “will travel very soon to Gaziantep [in Turkey] to discuss his plan with key rebel groups from Aleppo,” his spokeswoman Juliette Touma told AFP.
She did not specify when exactly the talks would place.
