Tag: Deir Ezzor

Russia slams ‘criminal’ US-led strikes in Syria

UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — Russia’s UN ambassador on Thursday slammed as “criminal” the US-led coalition strikes against pro-regime forces in Syria that left more than 100 dead. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters that he protested the assault in Syria’s eastern province of Deir Ezzor during a closed-door Security Council meeting. “It was inadmissible for whatever reasons it was justified,” Nebenzia told reporters, adding that he told the United States “to remember that they […]

US-led strikes on Syria’s Deir Ezzor ‘self-defense’: Pentagon

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Deadly air strikes by a US-led coalition on pro-regime forces in eastern Syria were purely an act of self-defense, Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said Thursday, in an apparent effort to tamp down controversy over the incident. “It was self-defense,” Mattis told reporters. “We are not getting engaged in the Syrian civil war.” More than 100 forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were killed in the attack by the US-backed […]

IS attack killed at least 75 displaced Syrians

by Rouba El Husseini Agence France Presse BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — A car bombing by the Islamic State group killed at least 75 displaced civilians who had fled fighting in eastern Syria, a monitor said Sunday, as the cornered extremists try to defend their last strongholds. Syrian government troops meanwhile moved closer to the border town of Albu Kamal, the last urban zone still held by IS jihadist holdouts in Syria, the Syrian Observatory for […]

Syria army nears regime enclave besieged by IS

by Sara Hussein Agence France Presse BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Syria’s army battled the Islamic State group on the edges of Deir Ezzor Monday, seeking to break the siege of a government enclave and oust the jihadists from a key stronghold. The jihadist group has already lost more than half of its nearby bastion of Raqa to attacking US-backed forces, and the loss of Deir Ezzor city and the surrounding oil-rich province would leave it […]