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The Syrian army and allied forces have broken ISIL’s siege on Deir Az Zor military airport, state media said on Saturday, hours after US-backed fighters announced a separate push against the armed group in the oil-rich eastern province.
State news agency SANA said the breach came “after the forces advancing from the cemetery southwest of the city linked up with the forces holding the air base”.
The U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) began an assault against the final ISIS enclave in eastern Syria on Saturday, aiming to wipe out the last vestige of the jihadist group’s “caliphate” in the SDF’s area of operations.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who plans to pull U.S. forces out of Syria, said on Wednesday he expected an announcement as early as next week that the U.S.-led coalition operating in support of the SDF had reclaimed all the territory previously held by the jihadist group.
At least 10 Maoists were killed in an encounter with security forces in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district today, police said.
The encounter took place around 11 am in a forest in Bhairamgarh police station area when a joint team of the Special Task Force (STF) and the District Reserve Guard (DRG) was out on an anti-Maoist operation, Bijapur Superintendent of Police Mohit Garg told news agency Press Trust of India.
Clashes resumed near Libya’s biggest oil field, a day after eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar said his forces had reached the deposit in a push to secure the southwestern region and its energy installations.
Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army exchanged fire early on Thursday with troops led by Ali Kana, a supporter of the rival United Nations-backed authorities in Tripoli in the west of the divided country, according to people with knowledge of the situation, asking not to be identified because they aren’t allowed to speak to media.
At least 36 members of the Afghan security forces and 22 Taliban terrorists have been killed in fresh clashes in the country’s north, officials and local media confirmed Tuesday.
The renewed fighting coincides with a two-day round of peace talks now underway in Moscow between Taliban representatives and several Afghan officials (not affiliated with the Kabul government).
