Dozens of pro-regime airstrikes and barrel bombing since Saturday morning on city near Jordanian border


LATEST


The battle for control of Daraa in southern Syria continued on Saturday, with pro-Assad forces bombing rebels in the fight for a strategic area of the city on the Jordanian border.

In the past month, rebels have defied restrictions on weapons supplies and the regime’s airpower and shelling to take most of the Manshiyah district where a number of regime and security buildings are located.

Amid intense clashes in the Manshiyah and Sajnah areas, pro-Assad warplanes carried out 17 airstrikes and 22 barrel-bombings on Saturday morning, according to pro-opposition activists.

Rebels said they repelled the latest attempt by the pro-Assad forces to regain territory. They claimed more than 15 fighters, including Iraqi militia, were killed.

Bombing of Daraa on Sunday morning:

Syria’s uprising began in Daraa in March 2011 with protests over the detention and abuse of teenagers who sprayed graffiti on town walls. The city has been divided between regime and rebel forces for almost all of the conflict, with the opposition holding much of the surrounding countryside.

In 2015, rebels tried to build on an advance throughout southern Syria with an offensive to take all of the city, but they were restricted by limits on weapons supplies, imposed by the US-led Military Operations Center in Jordan. Opposition activists say the restrictions have continued through 2017, despite pro-Assad gains in parts of Daraa Province.

TOP PHOTO: Smoke rises from pro-Assad bombing of Manshiyah in Daraa city, June 2, 2017


ISIS Withdraws from Last Town in Eastern Aleppo Province

The Islamic State has withdrawn from the last town it held in eastern Aleppo Province.

Pro-Assad forces moved into Maskaneh on Saturday as ISIS fighters pulled back to the east. The regime and its allies should now finally be able to Khanasser road, a vital route to Aleppo city which had been disrupted by the Islamic State since 2014.

The Islamic State is under increasing pressure through northern, central, and eastern Syria with pro-Assad forces, rebels, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces each taking most ISIS positions and pushing it back into Deir ez-Zor Province in eastern Syria.


Assad: “We Don’t Have Chemical Weapons”

President Assad has again maintained — in defiance of international reports and years of evidence — “We don’t have chemical weapons.”

In an interview with India’s Wion TV, Assad was asked about the regime’s April 4 use of nerve agent on the town in Khan Sheikhoun in northwest Syria, an attack which killed at least 92 people and wounded almost 600.

Assad has previously said that the attack was “100% fabricated”. This time he gave a long, muddled explanation which questioned if the event occurred but said, that if it did, “terrorists” must be responsible:

Who’s behind it? It was very simply the United States and the Western intelligence with the terrorists. They staged this play just to have a pretext to attack Syria, and that’s what happened a few days later when they attacked our airport, and actually they supported the terrorists, because ISIS launched an attack the same day of the American attacks on our airbase. And they wanted to demonize again, to re-demonize the Syrian state and the Syrian President. So, this is the only headline that could capture the audience and the public opinion around the world.

The full interview: