Pro-Government Forces Capture Last ISIS Stronghold in Syria

Pro-government forces captured the so-called Islamic State’s last stronghold in Syria on Thursday after militants withdrew from the area, the Associated Press reported.

The AP said that pro-government forces are now clearing the town of Boukamal, near the border with Iraq, of land mines and ISIS sleeper cells, citing the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monitoring group.

Syria’s pro-government media also declared the town free of militants on Thursday.

Pro-government forces first entered Boukamal on Wednesday after encircling militants, the AP reported.

Iraqi forces crossed the border to help surround the last militant enclave in Syria, according to the AP and the SOHR. The monitoring group said that Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitaries took part in clashes to liberate the city.

The SOHR said on Wednesday that the rapid offensive on Boukamal aimed to block the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from reaching the militant enclave.

The monitoring group reported that SDF fighters are about 22 miles (35km) away from the town.

According to the AP, the capture of Boukamal gives the Syrian government “its first official Iraq border crossing since the frontier region was taken over by insurgents in 2012.”

The development also strips ISIS of its last main stronghold in Syria, leaving militants holed up in a number of villages and towns near the border with Iraq in addition to areas in Syria’s Badiya desert.

Iran: Syrian Government Will Recapture Idlib Soon

A senior Iranian official said on Wednesday that the Syrian government will recapture the last province in Syria under full opposition control after wresting control over eastern parts of the country, Reuters reported.

“Soon we will see the eastern Syria cleared, and then the Idlib area in [the] west,” Ali Akbar Velayati, the top aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as saying.

Idlib province in northwest Syria is currently controlled by the al-Qaida-linked Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) alliance.

Turkish troops and allied rebel forces also deployed in northern parts of the province, near the border with Turkey, last month as part of Ankara’s latest cross-border campaign in Syria’s north.

Velayati did not explain how the Syrian government would recapture the insurgent-held province, which is home to thousands of civilians.

Fierce Clashes Rock Hama’s Northern Countryside

At least eight pro-government fighters were killed on Wednesday in clashes with al-Qaida-linked militants in Hama province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The war monitor said that at least 13 HTS fighters were also killed in battles with government forces in the northern countryside of Hama, near the provincial border with rebel-held Idlib.

The area emerged as the latest flashpoint after al-Qaida-linked militants launched a widescale assault on government positions on Monday.

The Syrian government is now trying to regain villages and towns it has lost during the HTS offensive.

Wednesday’s fighting, which also involved heavy airstrikes by Russian warplanes, centered around Khazim Hill. HTS wrested control over the area on Wednesday only hours after it was recaptured by the government.

HTS militants, who are based in the adjacent stronghold of Idlib, have regularly carried out attacks against government forces in northern Hama.

An HTS attack on government loyalists in September killed some 22 pro-government fighters and allowed the al-Qaida-linked group to capture positions in the area. However, HTS was driven from the area by government forces less than a week later.

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