A view seen through the scope of a weapon belonging to a sniper and rebel fighter shows a building where forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad are stationed, as seen from a rebel-controlled area in the northwestern Homs district of Al Waer February 18, 2015. Picture taken February 18. REUTERS/Stringer |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State fighters attacked a military airport in Syria's Homs province on Monday as they pushed on with an offensive against government strongholds towards the west, a monitoring group said.
Skirmishes by
Islamic State -- which is strongest in the northeast and east -- into
the provinces of Homs, Hama and even Damascus pose a fresh challenge for
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Syria's army has carved a bulwark of territory from
Damascus through the cities of Homs and Hama to the western coast by
defeating other, less powerful militias including rebels fighting under
the banner of the Free Syrian Army.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the
violence through a network of sources in the country, said Islamic State
attacked a military airport in Tadmur, a town in Homs province, early
on Monday.
Syrian officials could not immediately be reached for comment, and the fighting was not reported on state media.
The offensive followed a three-day battle that erupted on
Friday further west in Hama around Sheikh Hilal village, the Observatory
said. Islamic State was trying to cut the road from Hama to Aleppo,
once Syria's most populous city, it added.
Observatory head Rami Abdulrahman, said 74 soldiers in
Hama had been killed by Islamic State, which he speculated launched both
attacks to raise morale after losses to Kurdish forces in the
northeast.
Around 200,000 people have been killed since 2011 in Syria's civil war,
which pits Assad against a range of rebels including jihadist groups
such as Islamic State and al Qaeda's Nusra Front. A U.S-led coalition is
bombarding Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq.
Kurdish forces, backed by coalition air strikes, defeated
Islamic State in the northern Syria town of Kobani this year and other
areas in the northeast.
Syrian state television said Syria's army killed 19 Islamic
State fighters on Monday in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, one of
the insurgent group's strongholds.
Government supporters posted a video on YouTube on
Saturday showing trucks covered in the national flag carrying coffins of
people said to have been killed fighting Islamic State in Hama
province.
The
footage was said to be taken in Salamiyah, a religiously-diverse town
east of Hama that has been attacked by jihadist brigades.
An Islamic State fighter told Reuters on condition of
anonymity that the Hama campaign aimed to eventually take Salamiyah.
"The ultimate goal is liberate Salamiya and Hama but it will not happen
before Islamic State is 100 percent ready," he said.
(Reporting by Oliver Holmes and Mariam Karouny; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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