DAMASCUS (Dispatches) –
Syrian armed forces shot down three drones laden with explosives suspected of being belonged to terrorists groups in the suburbs of Idlib and Hama province on Monday.
“After monitoring the movements of the terrorist organizations and their repeated attempts to attack peaceful civilians and their property, units of Syrian armed forces operating in Idlib and Hama countryside shot down three drones equipped with explosives that tried to attack the safe surrounding villages and towns”, the Syrian Ministry of Defense announced on its Facebook page.
On August 3, units of the Syrian Army destroyed two drones and shot down 3 others belonging to the terrorists in the northern and western countryside of Aleppo.
In another development in the country, at least eight militants were killed in Russian air strikes early Monday targeting a militant base in Syria’s northwest, a war monitor said.
“Russian warplanes carried out air strikes on the western outskirts of Idlib city, targeting a military base belonging to Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS)... killing at least eight fighters,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Several other terrorists were wounded in the strikes, with some in critical condition, said the Britain-based monitor, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria.
Terrorist group HTS, led by Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate, controls swathes of Idlib province, parts of which form the last bastions of armed militants.
HTS also controls parts of the adjacent Latakia, Hama and Aleppo provinces.
An AFP correspondent at the site said the militant group cordoned off the area after the strikes, which came shortly after midnight.
Russia has repeatedly struck the Idlib stronghold over the years.
Moscow is a major ally of Damascus, and its intervention in Syria since 2015 helped to turn the tide in the government’s favor.
Russia, alongside Iran, has been helping Syrian forces in battles across the conflict-plagued country, mainly providing aerial support to ground operations against foreign-backed terrorists.
Back on July 18, Mikhail Bogdanov, the Russian president’s special representative for the Middle East and Africa, sternly criticized the persisting illegal presence of U.S. military forces in Syria, demanding that the Pentagon end its illegitimate occupation of the Arab nation’s energy- and mineral-rich regions.
“Washington uses the pretext of combating terrorism to be present east of the Euphrates in economically important areas, where crude oil and strategic natural reserves are abundant,” he said at the time.