(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 9 people killed in Russian airstrikes on the town of Albu Kamal at the Iraqi border as the regime army and allied forces pushed into the remaining ISIS-held districts east of Deir Ezzor province, local activists said.
The strikes hit a marketplace in the town amid reports saying the fall of strategic town is very imminent as tens of ISIS fighters keep withdrawing from their posts.
Backed by Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, the regime army has been fighting in the city since last month, after breaking an ISIS siege of an enclave there that had lasted three years.
Syrian troops and their allies made gains on Tuesday after "storming districts of Deir Ezzor city to clear them from [Daesh]", said the media unit run by Hezbollah, a key ally of the Damascus government.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group, said Daesh militants still controlled nearly five neighborhoods of the city.
Syrian regime forces have been fighting to oust Daesh from the eastern oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor which borders Iraq. Deir Ezzor city sits on the western bank of the Euphrates river.
M. Gen Issam Zahreddine, the regime military commander in Deir Ezzor province, has been killed in a land mine explosion, local activists said on Wednesday.
In Raqqa city, the humanitarian crisis is still escalating even after its capture by the US-led Syrian Democratic Forces on Tuesday, Save the Children said Tuesday. “The military offensive in Raqqa may be coming to an end, but the humanitarian crisis is greater than ever,” the aid group’s Syria director Sonia Khush said in a statement.
The military development leaves the militants’ self-styled “caliphate” in tatters but Save the Children warned that “some 270,000 people who have fled the Raqqa fighting are still in critical need of aid, and camps are bursting at the seams.”
It said that most Raqqa families had no homes to go back to and that thousands of civilians were still being displaced in Deir al-Zor, where fighting was still raging Tuesday.
The aid group said that the reconstruction effort would require massive investment and that funding would also be needed to bring children back to school.
“Many are plagued by nightmares from witnessing horrific violence and will need extensive psychological support,” the aid group said.
After Daesh captured Raqqa in 2014, the city become synonymous with the militant group’s worst abuses. The SDF Monday retook an infamous roundabout where Daesh used to carry out public beheadings and crucifixions. (With Agencies)
zaman A Wasl
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