1. Islamic State (ISIS) fighters killed at least seven regime loyalists in eastern Syria on Saturday, the latest in a series of deadly extremist attacks. “Seven members of the National Defense Forces, a pro-regime militia, were killed in clashes with an ISIS sleeper cell” in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The attack came as the militia fighters were sweeping the town of al-Shola for militant remnants, according to the monitor.
2. Albanian military and police ships saved 50 Syrian refugees trapped by bad weather as they tried to reach Italy by boat, AP reported Saturday. A police statement said that, in collaboration with Italy’s financial police, on Friday evening they found the packed inflatable boat at the Vjosa River delta, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital, Tirana, where it had been blocked for about three hours due to high waves in the Adriatic Sea. No one was believed to be missing.
3. On Saturday, Russian warplanes launched airstrikes on the Syrian opposition-controlled areas of Jabal al-Akrad, north of Lattakia, western Syria, which are subject to the de-escalation zone agreement, North Press reported. Field sources told North Press that the Russian warplanes targeted, with high-explosive thermobaric missiles, the positions of the armed groups on the frontline of Jabal al-Akrad. It added that the Russian airstrikes coincided with an artillery bombardment on the al-Khader front in Jabal al-Akrad. There has been no information released about casualties.
4. On Saturday, US forces moved additional military and logistical reinforcements to their bases in the Deir ez-Zor countryside. Civil sources told SANA that a convoy consisting of 30 vehicles, including trucks loaded with heavy weapons, cannons, tanks and closed trucks affiliated to US occupation forces moved from Hassakeh to the Deir ez-Zor countryside, in order to reinforce the illegal occupation bases there.
5. SANA also reported that the US forces continue to, “steal Syrian resources and agricultural crops from the areas they have occupied in the Syrian al-Jazeera”, as the occupation forces moved a convoy of vehicles loaded with stolen barley from Syrian lands to northern Iraq via the illegitimate al-Walid crossing in the al-Yaroubia countryside. The convoy of 50 trucks and a number of refrigerated containers left the city of al-Malikiyah through the illegitimate al-Walid crossing, heading to Iraqi lands.”
6. The death toll of people from Daraa province killed in 2020 was 275, with a further 750 more people arrested, a local monitoring group said Saturday. At least 26 people were killed while outside the province, most of them during clashes against the regime forces in northwestern Syria, the Daraa Martyrs Documentation Office said. The first half of 2020 witnessed an increase in the number of victims compared to the second half, as a result of the clashes that took place in northern Syria between the regime forces and the opposition factions and the killing of many residents of Daraa by the regime forces.
This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
