DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – Syrian government forces, supported by fighters from allied popular defense groups, have managed to wrest complete control over a town in the central province of Homs as they continue to score more territorial gains against the Daesh terrorist group across the war-ravaged Arab country.
Syria’s official news agency, SANA, reported that Syrian troops and their allies had regained control of al-Qaraytan, located some 100 kilometers from the ancient city of Palmyra and nearly 300 kilometers from Dayr al-Zawr, after eliminating the Daesh terrorists that had infiltrated it.
Earlier this month, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Daesh terrorists had overrun the town.
The Britain-based monitoring group said on Saturday that some terrorists had surrendered and others had withdrawn from the town after heavy fighting.
The group said Daesh terrorists were now in control of a patch of desert in the east of Homs province.
The report comes as Syrian government forces are carrying out fresh operations against Daesh terrorists in the eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr, inflicting substantial losses on them.
Daesh overran large parts of Dayr al-Zawr province, including its many oil fields, in mid-2014 as it seized swathes of land in Syria and neighboring Iraq.
Meanwhile, a militant group that calls itself the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) says the Syrian city of Raqqah, where Daesh terrorists have recently left, will be part of a system of "federal government” in the country’s north.
The SDF said on Friday that it had "liberated” Raqqah after driving out Daesh terrorists from the city, which was Daesh’s former "capital” in Syria; but the terrorist group had largely left the city as part of a deal with the SDF and a U.S.-led coalition, both of which are operating in Syria without the Syrian government’s permission.
Later, the SDF said the political future of the city and the province of the same name would be determined "within the framework of a decentralized, federal, democratic Syria.”
The thinking behind the brazen announcement by the mainly Kurdish group was not clear. Raqqah is the territory of Syria, which is governed by a sovereign power, the Damascus government.
The Syrian military has so far not taken on the Kurdish militants. But the SDF has reportedly shelled the positions of government troops on several occasions in recent weeks, and with its refusal to hand over Raqqah to the government, the SDF now risks further provoking the Syrian military, which is also receiving aerial cover from the Russian military.
In ominous wording, the SDF also said that it would "protect the frontiers of the province against all external threats.”