(Zaman Al Wasl)- Three army officers, including brigadier general, killed on Saturday in Harasta suburb east of the capital as regime forces push to reach troops trapped in Armoured Vehicles Base, pro-regime media reported.
Death of brigadier general Haider Kamel al-Hassan, from Republican Guard units, followed mounting death toll among army ranks as opposition factions inflict heavy losses on the Assad forces.
State television said "army units had launched an assault to break the siege" of the Armoured Vehicle Base where some 250 soldiers are believed to be cut off, according to AFP.
Pro-regime activists on Tuesday reported death of Colonel Ibrahim Daberha, commander 402 Battalion, the commandos unit of Syrian Republican Guard, was killed in al-Murakabat Headquarters, Vehicles Base.
More than 119,000 pro-regime forces have been killed, including 62,000 troops, tens of thousands of loyalist militiamen, and 1,556 fighters from Hezbollah, according to a new estimate by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Meanwhile, several army troops have been taken captive by rebels in Harasta, Ghouta-based activists said.
On Saturday, at least 17 civilians, including women and children, killed in airstrikes on besieged Eastern Ghouta.
The volunteer first-responders Syrian Civil Defense, known as the White Helmets, reported 12 people killed in Hamouriyeh saying they included four children. They said five others were killed in other areas.
Five more people were killed neighboring suburbs, rising the death toll to 46 in three days of heavy bombing by the Assad regime and Russia.
Eastern Ghouta is a densely populated pocket of towns and farms and the only major rebel stronghold near the capital Damascus. The military has steadily defeated pockets of armed rebellion in western Syria over the past year, with the help of Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias.
Although Eastern Ghouta is officially a “de-escalation zone” under Russian-led ceasefire deals for rebel territory, fighting there has continued. The population, including 130,000 children, is suffering the worst malnutrition seen in the almost seven-year war, the U.N. has said.
Residents and aid workers said the regime has tightened the siege in recent months in what they called a deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war, a charge the government denies.
Zaman A Wasl
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