Islamic State terrorists killed three pro-Assad soldiers in the Badia desert

At least three pro-Bashar al-Assad fighters were killed and eight more wounded in Daesh attacks in the Badia desert, local activists told Zaman al-Wasl on Monday.

A field source said one Civil Defense fighter was killed on Sunday evening after an improvised explosive device went off in a vehicle near the town of al-Sukhna, which lies in Palmyra desert where the Islamic State still has pockets.

Two more fighters were killed by rocket-propelled grenades on Sunday in the eastern countryside of Homs.

The group was defeated in Syria in March 2019, but sleeper cells continue to launch attacks in the vast Badia desert spanning from central Syria eastwards to the border with Iraq.

On Saturday, six pro-Iran militants, including a Revolutionary Guard commander, were also killed, and more than 14 others wounded in a snap attack by Daesh in the Badia desert.

Zaman al-Wasl reporter, quoting field sources, said that the attack took place while the convoy was heading from Damascus International Airport towards the Palmyra desert in the central Homs province, stressing that the convoy consisted of 10 vehicles loaded with members, in addition to two armored vehicles and a truck loaded with weapons and ammunition.

Daesh militants targeted the convoy on the main road leading to the city of Palmyra, using machine guns and anti-aircraft guns, and surrounded the convoy from both sides of the road, so the clash lasted about 20 minutes.

The clash ended with the attackers fleeing into the Badia desert after the killing of 6 members, including an Iranian commander, Jabbar Abu Farshad, in addition to wounding more than 14 members. The attack also left two vehicles equipped with machine guns completely burned .

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard was largely surrounded after the attack and tried to track the militants after bringing in huge reinforcements from the countryside of Damascus and Homs to the area of ​​the attack.

Daesh has resorted to guerrilla tactics since it abandoned its goal of holding territory and creating a self-sufficient caliphate that straddles Iraq and Syria.

Also, in the Syrian desert, Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia has repositioned dozens of missiles, following US-led coaltion’s airstrikes hit pro-Iran factions based over the week in eastern and central Syria, sources told Zaman al-Wasl Friday.

More than 250 missiles were re-stationed from the desert town of al-Sukhna to al-Qaryatayn region east of Homs city, according to the source.

In eight trucks, Hezbollah transferred medium-range missiles,150 Katyusha rockets, 30 surface-to-air missiles, and shoulder-mounted anti-armor missiles.

Zaman al-Wasl reporter says the transfer came after an unidentified aircraft targeted one of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ warehouses in the Palmyra desert on Thursday.

Last Tuesday, the US-led coalition fighting Daesh in Syria said they had foiled an attack in the Deir Ezzor region in the northeast of the country, a day after the second anniversary of the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

After spotting “several launch sites of indirect fire rockets that posed an imminent threat,” coalition forces “conducted strikes to eliminate the threat,” a coalition official said in a statement.

“Indirect fire attacks pose a serious threat to innocent civilians because of their lack of discrimination” and the coalition “reserves the right to defend itself” added the official.

Asked about who might be behind the attack, the third in less than 48 hours in the region after others targeting the Ain Assad air base on Tuesday in western Iraq and Baghdad international airport on Monday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said he could not identify them.

“I’m not in a position now to get into specific attribution,” he said. “That said, we continue to see threats against our forces in Iraq and Syria by militia groups that are backed by Iran.”

Some 900 US troops remain deployed in northeastern Syria and at the Al-Tanf base in the south, on the borders of Iraq and Jordan.

The Syrian conflict has claimed 494,438 lives and has displaced 13,2 million people since it erupted in March 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-regime protests.

Source: Zamanalwsl