Syrian opposition launched artillery attack against the areas controlled by the governmental troops on early Wednesday in the Syrian city of Deir Al Zour, as the attack led to material damages and humanitarian losses. Meanwhile, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights revealed that the Syrian fighter jets carried out two raids against two houses controlled by ISIS extremists in the same city.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday dozens of people were killed in an air strike believed to have been carried out by the U.S.-led coalition on an Islamic State prison in the eastern Syrian town of al-Mayadeen.
The coalition said it had carried out strikes on known IS targets in the town on Sunday and Monday – the day the Observatory said the prison was hit, killing 57 people. The coalition said the mission had been “meticulously planned” to reduce the risk of possible harm to non-combatants. It added it would assess the Observatory’s allegation.
Islamic State is believed to have moved most of its leadership to al-Mayadeen in Syria’s Euphrates Valley, southeast of the group’s besieged capital Raqqa, according to U.S. intelligence officials. Among operations moved to al-Mayadeen, about 80 km (50 miles) west of the Iraqi border, are its online propaganda operation and its limited command and control of attacks in Europe and elsewhere, they say.
The Observatory said the air strike took place on Monday at dawn, hitting a building in the town of al-Mayadeen that was being used as a prison. Separately, Syrian state-run TV station al-Ikhbariya cited its Deir al-Zor correspondent as saying coalition warplanes had destroyed a building in al-Mayadeen used as a prison by Islamic State to hold a “large number of civilians”.
The U.S.-led coalition is supporting an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters in their assault on Islamic State in its de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria. “The Coalition conducted strikes on known ISIS (Islamic State) command and control facilities and other ISIS infrastructure in (Mayadeen), Syria, June 25 and 26,” Colonel Joe Scrocca, coalition director of public affairs, said in an email to Reuters.
“The removal of these facilities disrupts ISIS’s ability to facilitate and provoke terrorist attacks against the coalition, our partner forces and in our homelands. This mission was meticulously planned and executed to reduce the risk of collateral damage and potential harm to non-combatants.”
On the political side, The United States saw what appeared to be active Syrian preparations for a possible chemical weapons attack at Shayrat airfield, the same Syrian airfield the United States struck in April, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said on Tuesday. “This involved specific aircraft in a specific hangar, both of which we know to be associated with chemical weapons use,” Davis said, speaking by phone from Washington.
On the sidelines of his visit to Hmeimim military air base, where Russian air forces are based, head of Syrian regime Bashar al-Assad stressed that he will never forget Russia’s support for him in the Syrian war.
“Russia has provided weapons and ammunition to support Syria in its war against terrorism, but more importantly it has offered blood as well, which is the dearest thing a human being can give to fellow humans,” Assad said, according to Sputnik news agency.
“The Syrian people will not forget that their Russian brethren stood alongside them in this patriotic war. Salute to all the Russian fighters and to the leadership of Hmeimim base and the Russian military leadership, and the biggest salute to President Vladimir Putin.”
This is the second time Assad tours outside Damascus, where he had delivered the Eid prayer in the city of Hama, located in central Syria, whereas the Hmeimim base is located in the province of Latakia east Syria.
He visited Hama after the Russian army bombed the countryside of the city and weeks later after attacking Khan Sheikhun with chemical weapons, which Washington responded to by bombing the regime forces.