Opposition fighters in Daraya have derailed an attempt by pro-Assad militias to storm the area by ground assault. The loyalist militias imposed a tightened blockade to prevent the entry of any humanitarian assistance for the 8,000 civilians who have been under siege in the town for more than three years.
Daraya’s local council said that Assad’s militias bombarded the town for the second day in a row with rockets and artillery shells, causing heavy damage to a number of residential buildings and starting fires.
Factions in the armed Syrian opposition said that they had fought off a ground assault carried out by regime forces on the areas of Kabana and Hadada in the Jabal al-Akrad area in the northern Lattakia countryside, adding that a number of mercenaries were killed and their equipment was destroyed.
Assad’s militias struck the road connecting the village of Obein and the Yemdiyeh humanitarian crossing on the Syrian-Turkish border, as well as the villages of Salour and Zeitouneh in the Turkman mountains in the Lattakia countryside, according to Al-Jazeera.
Meanwhile, Syrian opposition forces managed on Sunday to recapture a number of villages around the city of Azaz in the northern Aleppo countryside which were under Islamic State control.
The Turkish Anadolu News Agency reported that the opposition regained the villages of Tel Hussein, Fereiziyeh, Sheikh Reih, Yehmoul and Jaaraz, east of Azaz. It added that heavy clashes between opposition forces and ISIS occurred in the area of the village of Beil, while the US-led international coalition struck the organization’s bases near Azaz.
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
