Russian airstrikes kill 14 people in border town with Iraq

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Russia’s warplanes have conducted more than 50 raids since early Monday on eastern Deir Ezzor province, killing at least 14 people in the border town of Albukamal, local monitoring group said.

Furat Post said the deadly strikes on the strategic town have topped the death toll to 23 in three days.

Backed by Russian air strikes, the forces of Bashar al-Assad are pressing a battle to retake IS-controlled areas in Deir Ezzor.

The major offensive on ISIS territories in eastern Syria has left more than 3000 people killed including 955 civilians since September, the deadliest month of the conflict this year, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

The 955 civilians killed in September included 207 children, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria for its information.

"More than 70 percent of the civilians were killed in regime and Russian air strikes, or in air raids of the international coalition" fighting IS, the monitor's head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

A US-led international coalition has been providing air support to a Kurdish-Arab alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces, also fighting the jihadists in their former northern bastion of Raqa city and in Deir Ezzor.

Earlier this week, the jihadists launched an assault on government positions in Syria's vast Badiya desert, killing at least 128 regime troops.

Russia-backed Syrian troops have been battling for months to retake the Badiya, which stretches from the country's centre to the Iraqi and Jordanian borders and has been held by IS since 2014.

Last month, they broke a years-long IS siege of government enclaves in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor.

Meanwhile, at least 7 Hezbollah militants were killed a U.S. drone attack on their bastion in Badia at the enclaves of Deir Ezzor, source told Zaman al-Wasl.

The death of the Lebanese militant has been increased in the last 48 hours as the Islamic State wage counterattack on the regime forces and allied Shiite militias on the road links between Homs and Deir Ezzor.

On Friday, 10 Hezbollah fighters killed by ISIS in Homs desert, Anadolu agency reported.

The pro-Hezbollah websites, which typically publish the names of Hezbollah casualties in Syria, posted photos of the 10 slain fighters, most of whom reportedly hailed from Lebanon’s eastern Beqaa province. (With agencies)