Syrian regime clears last IS bastion in Aleppo province
The Syrian regime is closing in on the Islamic State in Aleppo, while securing a foothold in Raqqa’s outskirts, where US-backed rebels launched their offensive to liberate the city.
ALEPPO, Syria — The Syrian regime forces continue their military operations in Aleppo’s eastern countryside, and with that, towns and villages are slipping out of the Islamic State (IS) grip. On June 4, IS suffered its biggest losses in this attack, as regime forces took control of Maskanah town, the last inhabited neighborhood under IS control in Aleppo province, according to the administrative division of IS.
Apart from some deserts and hills that are still under IS control in the Syrian Desert in the extreme eastern countryside of Aleppo, where there are no villages or inhabited areas, IS has left Aleppo after losing in Maskanah, or Muslima, as the Islamist group likes to call it.
This is the second province that IS has lost in Syria, after the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) took control of al-Baraka province, the IS name for Hasakah, at the end of February 2016.
With the Russian air raids and the increased shelling that began May 2 in eastern Aleppo, IS militants had to retreat from the Jirah air base and from several villages and towns in the eastern Aleppo countryside that the regime forces, made up of Qawat al-Nimr and Liwa al-Quds, invaded. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan led the forces, with the support of groups affiliated with Lebanese Hezbollah.
