Heavy clashes between the Syrian regime forces and the Islamic State group in Deir Ezzor city have killed at least 73 fighters in the last 24 hours, a monitor said Sunday.
The regime army controls most of Deir Ezzor city, capital of Deir Ezzor province in the country's east, and made further advances after responding to an IS attack that began Saturday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.
The monitor said the fierce fighting Saturday killed at least 50 IS fighters, as well as 23 Syrian soldiers and pro-regime militiamen.
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said regime forces had captured two new neighbourhoods and the municipal stadium.
"IS is now encircled in an area between the city and the (Euphrates) river," Abdel Rahman said.
ISIS once held large sections of Deir Ezzor city, and for nearly three years laid siege to other parts of it that remained under government control.
Local activist Firas Allawi told Zaman al-Wasl that regime airstrikes have also killed 7 people, including children in the ISIS-held neighborhoods in Deir Ezzor.
In early September, advancing regime forces broke the siege, and they have been working since to expel the jihadists from the rest of the city.
Abdel Rahman said the fighting that began Saturday was the fiercest in the city since government troops broke the siege, adding that clashes were continuing Sunday, with regime ally Russia carrying out heavy air strikes in support of the army and allied fighters.
Deir Ezzor, an oil-rich province that borders Iraq, was once a stronghold of IS, but the jihadist group faces twin assaults there, from the regime and the US-backed Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces.
The jihadists have already been expelled from neighbouring Raqa province, and are now confined to just a few pockets of territory in Deir Ezzor.
Meanwhile, a fresh round of peace talks seeking to end Syria's war opened in the Kazakh capital Astana Monday, as part of a Moscow-led push supported by Iran and opposition backer Turkey.
The latest round of talks begins days after Daesh (ISIS) was forced out of its de facto capital Raqqa in northern Syria, in a major victory for the U.S.-backed Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces.
Recent rounds of talks in the Central Asian nation have focused on ironing out the details of a Russia-led plan for four de-escalation zones in Syria.
"Closed-format talks have begun," Kazakh foreign ministry spokesman Anuar Zhainakov told AFP, adding that the two-day negotiations would conclude with statements to the media.
More than 470,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests. (With AFP )
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