 | Wars in the World |
Daily News on Wars in the World and on New States
| FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK X FLIPBOARD TELEGRAM |
Regime forces seized a military base from rebels in southern Syria on Tuesday and were locked in heavy fighting in a nearby opposition stronghold, a monitor and state media said.
Government troops captured the Brigade 82 base outside Sheikh Miskeen in Daraa province and were clashing with rebels inside the town, state news agency SANA said.
Iraqi officials say security forces have taken control of a government complex in Ramadi that has been a stronghold for Islamic State (IS) militants in the government’s push to retake the devastated city.
“By controlling the complex this means that they have been defeated in Ramadi,” Sabah al-Numani, a spokesman for the force leading the fight on the government side, was quoted by Reuters as saying on December 27. “The next step is to clear pockets that could exist here or there in the city.”
A U.S.-backed coalition of rebels in Syria — including Syrian Kurdish, Arab and Christian groups — captured several areas in the country’s north from the Islamic State extremists as government air raids on a rebel-held Damascus suburb killed at least 20 people on Thursday.
Government warplanes and helicopter gunships struck the suburb of Hamouriyeh, which over the past weeks has been subjected to intense government airstrikes like other opposition-held areas near the Syrian capital.
Yemen’s pro-government forces on Tuesday seized key ground in Hajjah province from Houthi rebels near the insurgents’ stronghold in Saada.
The gains came as Saudi Arabia shot down another ballistic missile fired from Yemen.
The Iraqi army stands on the verge of recapturing Ramadi from Isil after troops advanced into the centre of the city, according to the Baghdad government.
Terrorists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) seized Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province and a city with about 450,000 people, as long ago as May.