(Zaman Alwasl)- At least 70 members of the Islamic State (IS) Sunni extremist organization have been killed in two days of clashes with the Syrian Army over al-Tabaqa military airport, the only bastion still in the hands of the regime in Raqqa province in eastern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday.
The London-based NGO said dozens of IS militants were also injured in the fighting with Syrian forces and some of them are in serious condition.
The IS had announced Thursday its rapid advance in the area after launching an operation to take control of the airport.
But a Syrian military source told the SANA news agency that government troops are still controlling the airport.
Filed activists told Zaman Alwasl that the strikes of regime warplanes were highly acute and precise, some say it might has been hit by U.S. air strikes.
On Friday, Syrian government forces have sent reinforcements to an air base being attacked by Islamic State militants in northeast Syria where no fewer than 30 of the radical group's fighters were killed on Thursday, Reuter said.
The airbase at Tabqa, some 40 km (25 miles) east of the city of Raqqa in northeast Syria, represents the government's last foothold in an area otherwise controlled by the Islamic State group that has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.
The Observatory said the reinforcements had been flown in overnight into Friday.
The city of Raqqa on the Euphrates River represents the Islamic State's stronghold in Syria. Boosted by weaponry seized in Iraq, the group has taken three Syrian military bases in the area in recent weeks.
The human rights office of the UN reported Friday that at least 191,369 people have been killed in the Syrian armed conflict between March 2011 and April this year. (With Reuters, IANS)
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