DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – The Syrian army says reinforcements have been deployed to the ancient city of Palmyra in the west-central Homs Province to prevent the Daesh terrorists from further advancing toward the city.
The army said in a statement that clashes are underway between government forces and the terrorists, who have advanced to the city’s outskirts.
The statement said that the terrorists had seized areas to the northwest and southeast of the historic city.
According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the terrorist group launched the recent offensive late on Thursday, when it seized grain silos northeast of Palmyra, and has since taken at least partial control of oil and gas fields to the city’s northwest.
The Syrian army, backed by popular forces and a wave of Russian airstrikes, retook the ancient city from Daesh on March 27 following weeks of military operations.
Syrian army and allied forces are also busy driving the Takfiri terrorists from the strategic northwestern city of Aleppo. Government forces liberated 52 blocks in the eastern parts of the city and are now in control of 93 percent of the whole city, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
The recent army gains come despite the persistent financial and military support that many foreign states have been providing to the terrorists since 2011 to bring about the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.
Meanwhile, foreign-backed terrorists on Saturday carried out new rocket attacks on government-held areas in Aleppo, leaving ten civilians dead and injuring 25 others.
In an earlier assault, which targeted several districts, including Bustan al-Zahra, Seif al-Dawla, and Old Aleppo, nearly a dozen civilians had lost their lives and some 128 others had been injured.
Thousands of Syrian civilians are leaving terrorist-controlled areas in the flashpoint city through humanitarian corridors opened by Syrian government forces.

U.S. Involvement

The United States announced plans to send 200 more troops to Syria to allegedly join operations aimed at retaking the Syrian city of Raqqah from the Daesh terrorist group.
"I can tell you today that the United States will deploy approximately 200 additional U.S. forces in Syria," U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a security conference in the Bahraini capital, Manama.
They will add to 300 American special forces already operating in Syria which has been fighting foreign-backed terrorism for years.
Carter said troops were only about 25 kilometers away from Raqqah, adding they were helping SDF terrorists who are mainly comprised of Kurdish fighters.
The announcement came a day after Turkey said it was dispatching 300 special troops to Syria to reinforce its U.S.-backed incursion of the Arab country.
The Turkish army said its troops and terrorists had seized control of a highway between the key regional towns of al-Bab and Manbij on Friday.
Damascus has already strongly criticized the United States and Turkey for deploying troops to the Syrian soil, saying it amounts to an act of aggression.