Syrian Army advances more than 200 meters deep into ISIS-occupied region
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) resumed their field operations inside the al-Safa region of al-Sweida this week in a bid to finally liberate this 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....
(ISIS) stronghold.
Backed by Russian
Following the liberation of this area, the Syrian Arab Army launched another big attack this morning that concentrated on the western axis of the al-Safa region.
According to a military source in Damascus, the Syrian Arab Army managed to advance more than 200 meters deep into the ISIS-occupied al-Safa.
The source said the Syrian Arab Army is now only a few hundred meters away from having fire control over all the hills in the al-Safa region.
Syria families demand regime action to free ISIS hostages[Rudaw] The families of Druze hostages held by the Islamic State group rallied for a third day on Friday to demand action by the Syrian government to free them, witnesses said.
The jihadists kidnapped around 30 people -- mostly women and kiddies -- from the southwestern province of Sweida in late July during the deadliest attack on Syria's Druze community of the seven-year civil war.
On Friday, a handful of people gathered for a sit-in at the government's provincial headquarters in Sweida, a news hound in the city told AFP.
The protests began on Wednesday, a day after families learned that ISIS had executed a 25-year-old female captive, Nour Radwan, the head of news website Sweida24, told AFP.
They began protesting to "demand that the government intervene immediately to free the hostages," he said.
A protester, who asked to remain anonymous, said he was not related to the Druze hostages but had joined the sit-in to show support.
"Those who are related to them are always here, and there are large numbers that come in solidarity," he told AFP, though adding that the numbers were lower on Friday.
"We're demanding the return of the hostages. That's not a tall order," he said.
Negotiations between the government's Russian ally and the jihadists for the release of the Druze captives had stalled, but Radwan said they resumed on the first day of the sit-in.
Footage of the protest on Thursday published online by Sweida24 showed a few dozen men and women in front of the provincial headquarters.
They gathered on the building's front steps around neatly lined up photographs of the missing, and a sign that said: "We demand the hostages be returned alive."
- ISIS demands $1 mn ransoms -
Government forces have battled ISIS in the volcanic plateau of Tulul al-Safa in the east of the province since the July attack.
Radwan said the jihadists had demanded $1 million in ransom for each of the 27 hostages, as well as an end to the government's offensive against them in Tulul al-Safa and the release of 48 wives of ISIS fighters from government custody.
In the July 25 attack, ISIS killed more than 250 people, most of them civilians, in a wave of suicide kabooms, shootings and stabbings across Sweida province.
They kidnapped around 30 people -- mostly women and kiddies -- at the same time.
In August, ISIS executed a 19-year-old male student among the captives.
A 65-year-old Syrian woman among the hostages also died, with her ISIS captors telling negotiators she had died of an illness.