ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE: Sputnik/Mikhail Alaeddin
On December 3, Syrian pro-government forces kicked off a large-scale combing operation in the western and northern countryside of Deir Ezzor.
The operation, which is being led by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the National Defense Forces (NDF), is meant to push ISIS cells out from the region.
Just a day earlier, ISIS terrorists massacred seven oil workers, two sheepherders and a service member of the SAA at a fake checkpoint they set up on al-Madhul – al-Bu Juma’a road in the western countryside of Deir Ezzor.
The terrorists also killed two pro-government fighters in a hit-run-attack that targeted a position of the NDF in the outskirts of the town of al-Masrab in the northern countryside of the governorate.
It remains unclear if the Russian Aerospace Forces will back the new operation by targeted ISIS hideouts in the western and northern countryside of Deir Ezzor.
ISIS terrorists have been working to expand their influence in central Syria for the last few years. The terrorists are mainly based in the Homs desert which lays between the western countryside of Deir Ezzor and the eastern Homs countryside.
