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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| IS Launches Offensive in East Syria City |
| 2015-05-07 |
| [AnNahar] The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... jihadist group launched an offensive Wednesday in Deir Ezzor city in eastern Syria in a bid to seize a major regime airport nearby, a monitor and activist said. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights head Rami Abdel Rahman said festivities and at least one suicide kaboom had rocked eastern neighborhoods of Deir Ezzor controlled by regime forces. The jihadists also clashed with government troops on the outskirts of Deir Ezzor's military airport, but Abdel Rahman said they had yet to make any advance on the ground. IS already controls most of Deir Ezzor province and roughly half of its bustling provincial capital, said local media activist Mohammed al-Khleif. "The most violent festivities between IS and the regime now are in the neighborhoods of Al-Sanaa, al-Rasafa, and al-Omal in the east of the city," Khleif told AFP. He said the areas were strategic because of their proximity to Deir Ezzor military airport and to the regime's "security quarter" in the city's west, besieged by IS for more than four months. If IS succeeds, Deir Ezzor would be the second bustling provincial capital to fall to the group, after it named the northern city of Raqa the capital of their "caliphate." Abdel Rahman said Wednesday's festivities had killed one regime officer and three soldiers, but he could no details on IS casualties. Deir Ezzor lies at the crossroads of several key highways in Syria, leading east to the Iraqi border and north to Hasakeh province, which borders ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and where IS has been locked in battle with Kurdish militia. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |