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Daesh kidnaps 130 families in Syria's Dayr al-Zawr: Monitor

Saturday, 13 October 2018 11:09 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 13 October 2018 11:13 AM ]

This photo shows displaced families from Dayr al-Zawr Province, Syria. (by Reuters)

The Daesh terrorist group has abducted as many as 130 families in Syria's eastern Dayr al-Zawr Province in its latest atrocities in the Arab country, a UK-based monitoring group says.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the Syrian families were kidnapped from a displacement shelter in Dayr al-Zawr's eastern countryside.

It also reported intense fighting between Daesh militants and the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed coalition of mainly Kurdish militants, on the eastern side of Euphrates.

Daesh regularly abducts civilians to use them as human shields or bombers in the face of advances by Syrian army soldiers and allied fighters on the battlefield.

Last September, Syrian government forces managed to enter Dayr al-Zawr city, breaking an Daesh siege of nearly three years on government-held parts of the provincial capital.

Two months later, the Syrian military announced that it had fully liberated the Dayr al-Zawr city of Bukamal, Daesh's last urban stronghold.

Now, Daesh controls small pockets of Dayr al-Zawr Province, much of them empty desert.

Recent reports say the Daesh-held Syrian territory has shrunk to only one percent from almost half of the country a few years ago.

US sends 500 trucks of arms to Kurdish militants

Separately on Friday, Turekey's Yeni Safak daily reported that the US had supplied Kurdish militants in the northern Syrian city of Manbij with a total of 500 weapon-laden trucks in the past week alone.

Members of the US-backed People's Protection Units (YPG) militant outfit gather in the town of of Shaddadah, Hasakah Province, Syria, September 11, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

The trucks, which were escorted by American soldiers, also transported four construction vehicles and M984A4 wreckers for militants with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its Syrian branch, the People's Protection Units (YPG), according to the report.

The development comes despite a road map reached between Washington and Ankara on withdrawal of US-backed Kurdish militants from Manbij.

Turkey regards the YPG as a terrorist group and an affiliate of the PKK, but the US considers the Kurdish groups an ally in Syria and supplies them with training as well as equipment.

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