Four regime forces were killed in two land-mine explosions planted by Daesh (ISIS) in northeastern Raqqa province, a local reporter said Thursday.
The explosion of two land mines rocked two military vehicles of the Russian-backed Fifth Corps in the Mount Bishri in Raqqa desert.
In retaliation, Russia's warplanes carried out 26 airstrikes with high-explosive missiles on ISIS pockets spread in Mount Bishri and the Atheryia-Khanasser desert south of Aleppo.
Two members of the Fifth Corps forces were killed Wednesday in a land-mine explosion in Atharyia-Khanasser highway.
Daesh fighters still retain a presence in the vast Badia desert stretching across the country through Homs province and eastwards to the Iraqi border.
Regime forces and allied militias have come under a series of ambushes, assassinations and bombings in the vast Badia desert, mostly carried out by the Islamic State group.
Opposition factions and hardline groups have killed more than 220,000 pro-regime forces since the armed conflict erupted nine years ago, according to local monitoring groups.
Last week, Syrian army's Fourth Division on Saturday sent reinforcements to the central Homs province amid an unprecedented rise in the Islamic State attacks in the Syrian desert, sources told Zaman al-Wasl.
The military convoy of the elite Fourth Division left early Saturday the town of Qalaat al-Madiq in the western countryside of Hama, which is considered the main headquarters of the Fourth Division, heading the desert of al-Sukhna in the eastern countryside of Homs.
Also, the Fourth Division on Tuesday sent a military convoy from the town of Qalaat al-Madiq to the ancient Citadel of Palmyra in the eastern countryside of Homs, which included 17 military vehicles, two tanks, two heavy artillery, and four-wheel drive cars equipped with heavy machine guns, accompanied by 75 members of the squad’s staff.
This came due to a Russian request from the squad to go to the Badia in order to comb it after the increasing attacks of “Islamic State” militants in the Badia targeting Assad's forces and pro-Iran militias, in addition to targeting the oil convoys.
The Russian-backed Fifth Corps forces have also sent more than four military convoys during last February and March this year from the Maaret al-Numan town, south of Idlib province, separate areas of the Syrian Badia, most of which were stationed on the Athariya road. Khanasser, south of Aleppo, east of Hama.
Zaman Al Wasl
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