Syrian army edges towards IS bastion jets hit rebel towns
Date
2/13/2016 12:06:43 PM
(MENAFN- The Peninsula) An unexploded cluster bomblet is seen along a street after airstrikes by pro-Syrian government forces in the rebel held al-Ghariyah al-Gharbiyah town in Deraa province Syria February 11 2016.REUTERS/ALAA AL-FAQIR
BEIRUT/MUNICH: Syrian government forceswere poised to advance into the Islamic State stronghold ofRaqqa province and allied Russian jets kept up air strikes onrebel-held towns north of Aleppo the Syrian Observatory forHuman Rights reported on Saturday.
An advance into Raqqa would re-establish a Syrian governmentfoothold in the province for the first time since 2014 and maybe aimed at pre-empting any move by Saudi Arabia to send groundforces to fight Islamic State militants in Syria.
Russia is pressing ahead with its four-month-old aircampaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad ahead of "acessation of hostilities" agreed by major powers on Friday. Theagreement is due to come into effect in a week.
The Syrian army announced the capture of more ground in thenorthern Aleppo area where its advances backed by alliedLebanese Hezbollah and Iranian fighters have cut the main rebel
supply route from Turkey into opposition-held parts of Aleppo.
If its forces retake Aleppo and seal the Turkish borderDamascus would deal a crushing blow to the insurgents who wereon the march until Russia intervened last September shoring up
Assad's rule and paving the way to the current advances.
The cessation of hostilities agreement falls short of aformal ceasefire since it was not signed by the warring parties- the government and rebels seeking to topple Assad in thefive-year-long war that has killed 250000 people.
Russia has said it will keep bombing Islamic State and theal Qaeda-linked Nusra Front which in many areas of westernSyria fights government forces in close proximity to insurgents
deemed moderates by Western states.
Helped by Russian air power the Syrian army and its allieshave been pursuing offensives on crucial front lines of westernSyria while also attacking Islamic State further east.
The Observatory said government troops were just a fewkilometres (miles) from the provincial borders of Raqqa aftermaking a rapid advance eastwards along a desert highway in thelast few days from Ithriya. The Syrian army could notimmediately be reached for comment.
The Syrian government has not had a major foothold in Raqqaprovince since Islamic State insurgents captured Tabqa air basein 2014. "They are on the provincial borders of Raqqa"
Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters.
The ultra-hardline Islamic State whose main aim is toexpand its "caliphate" rather than toppling Assad and reformingSyria is being targeted in separate campaigns by a U.S.-ledalliance and the Syrian government with Russian air support.
U.S.-allied Kurdish forces are also fighting Islamic Statein Raqqa. Last year they advanced into Raqqa province from thenortheast capturing an Islamic State-held town at the border
with Turkey.
Reuters