Islamic State maintains foothold in Syrian desert
The Islamic State continues to cause trouble for the regime forces in large desert areas of central and eastern Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on March 31 that six Russian fighter jets launched 15 airstrikes against Islamic State positions in the Syrian desert near the Aleppo-Hama-Raqqa triangle.
The UK-based war monitor said that the Syrian government sent military reinforcements to the eastern desert in al-Mayadeen city to comb the region for IS cells.
On March 23, IS militants attacked the positions of Syrian government forces and allied militias near al-Shula, west of Deir ez-Zor and near the Deir ez-Zor-Damascus road. The attack killed seven militants loyal to the government and injured several others before Syrian warplanes targeted the area, pushing IS operatives into the desert.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights quoted sources from the Tishreen Military Hospital in northeastern Damascus as saying that around 100 Syrian army soldiers and their allied fighters were admitted to the hospital on March 27, 28 and 29. They had sustained various injuries in ambushes and from land mines planted by IS while searching the desert from the area of al-Sukhnah to Palmyra in the eastern countryside of Homs. Many of the injured had first-degree burns and others lost limbs.
