Syrian Army two miles from Deir ez-Zor enclave

With a lunge through terrorists’ lines, the army and its allies are close to relieving the Euphrates city, where the terror group has surrounded an army garrison and 93,000 civilians for years, Reuters reported.

The terror group has already lost more than half of its nearby bastion of Raqqa to attacking US-backed forces, and the loss of Deir ez-Zor city and the surrounding oil-rich province would leave it with only a handful of isolated outposts, Reuters wrote.

Deir ez-Zor Province borders Iraq, where Daesh has also been expelled from former strongholds Mosul and Tal Afar.

The terrorists hold large parts of Deir ez-Zor Province, and more than half the provincial capital Deir ez-Zor city, the remainder of which is controlled by the government and under Daesh siege.

Syrian troops backed by ally Russia have been advancing toward Deir ez-Zor city on several fronts for weeks, and overnight they reached the Brigade 137 base on its western edge, a monitor said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian troops outside and inside the base were battling to break the Daesh siege of the base.

Daesh seized large parts of Deir ez-Zor Province, including its many oilfields, in mid-2014 as it rampaged across Syria and Iraq.

By early 2015 it had also seized parts of Deir ez-Zor city and laid siege to the remaining parts of it under government control.

The siege tightened further earlier this year, when Daesh advanced and cut the government-held parts of the city in two, with a southern section by the key military airport now divided from a northern sector.

An estimated 100,000 people remain in government-held parts of the city, which had a prewar population of some 300,000.

The report estimates more than 10,000 people may live in the parts of the city held by Daesh, although precise information is hard to come by.

Source: Irandaily