Syrian army enters Dayr al-Zawr from Badia desert region
Syrian army troops have pushed deeper into the Daesh-held Dayr al-Zawr, advancing 13 kilometers in the oil-rich eastern province.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces advanced into the southwest of Dayr al-Zawr from the desert town of Sukhnah on Sunday.
Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based observatory, said the latest advance was the first conducted from the Badia desert region.
In June, Syrian forces entered Dayr al-Zawr from the southeast, near the Iraqi border, and earlier this month, they broke into the province from the nearby province of Raqqah, but moved just 4km in.
The latest development comes less than a month after the government forces managed to wrest control over Sukhnah, the last Daesh-held town in Homs Province. The recapture of the town on August 5 opened another route for government troops to advance towards Dayr al-Zawr.
Since May, the Syrian army has been conducting a large-scale military offensive to retake the Badia region that separates the capital Damascus from Dayr al-Zawr.
On Thursday, government troops completely surrounded the terrorists in a vast central desert region.
Fierce clashes erupted in that area on Sunday, the pro-opposition monitoring group said, adding that more than 50 aerial attacks hit the terrorists’ positions in the region overnight.
Daesh controls most of the oil-rich Dayr al-Zawr Province, but the terror outfit is under pressure from Syrian forces advancing from the west.
Syrian troops control a pocket of the provincial capital, Dayr al-Zawr, which has been under siege by Daesh for two years.
Dayr al-Zawr is one of the few remaining areas under Daesh control as the terrorist group is losing ground in Raqqah, its de facto capital in Syria.
Over the past few months, Syrian army soldiers and allied fighters have made sweeping gains against Takfiri elements, which have in turn increased their acts of violence across the country.
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