Fighting between ISIS and Syrian regime forces around Deir Ezzor air base in eastern Syria is still underway as dozens of both waring parties have been killed during a week.
Pro-ISIS twitter accounts said Saturday the radical group has been very close to overrun the air base, Bashar al-Assad's last footholds in eastern Syria.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights 18 regime soldiers and 36 Islamic State fighters had been killed on Thursday.
By Friday ISIS has captured an artillery battalion near the city's military airport, pressing more advances on the gates of airport.
Saray Ed-Din al-Deiri, local media activist, told Zaman al-Wasl that regime army has targeted ISIS fighters with toxic gas bombs, many of suffocation cases reported by medics of the next door city of al-Mayadeen.
After more than four years of war, Assad's sway is now mostly confined the cities of western Syria, with the rest held by Islamic State, other insurgent groups, or a Kurdish militia, which controls much of the north.
Deir Ezzor province borders territories in Iraq that are also controlled by Islamic State, and its oilfields are a major source of revenue for the group.
A U.S.-led coalition has been attacking Islamic State from the air in Deir Ezzor and the neighboring Raqqa province.
Losing the base will be the second setback in a week for Assad and its retreating army in a week. On Wednesday, Syrian state TV said regime troops had quit the Abu al-Duhur air base in the northwesterly Idlib province after a two-year siege by insurgents including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
Zaman Al Wasl
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