Army renews assault on Albu Kamal
New offensive successfully penetrates the town, with troops backed by Russian air raids advancing from all sides; coalition opposed Daesh withdrawal from Raqa: France
BEIRUT: The Syrian army on Thursday entered Albu Kamal, the last town in the country held by the Daesh group, several days after the extremists recaptured it, a monitor said.
The town in the eastern province of Deir Al Zor on the border with Iraq was initially captured by the army and allied forces a month ago but Daesh retook it in a counterattack.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the new offensive had successfully penetrated the town, with troops backed by Russian air strikes advancing from the west, east and south.
“Fighting is ongoing inside the town, there is artillery ire and there are Russian air strikes,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
The irst assault on Albu Kamal was spearheaded by Syrian government allies, including Iraqi and Lebanese Shiite ighters, and advisers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the Observatory said.
“This time, the military operation is being led directly by regime forces,” Abdel Rahman said, adding that troops had taken the town’s eastern, southern and western suburbs.
Daesh still holds around 25 per cent of the countryside of Deir Al Zor province but are under attack not only by government forces but also by USbacked Kurdish-led ighters.
Meanwhile, France’s military said on Thursday the coalition battling Daesh in Syria had opposed a deal allowing ighters of the militant group to withdraw from their former bastion of Raqqa.
The coalition had also been unable to launch air strikes against the ighters because they had mingled with civilians, French army spokesman Patrik Steiger said.
A report by BBC television on Sunday said some 4,000 people, including hundreds of foreign nationals, had been evacuated from Raqqa as part of the agreement and spread across Syria and as far as Turkey.
“The coalition was not for this agreement which enabled Daesh terrorists to escape without being chased,” Steiger told reporters in a weekly brieing.
“It (the convoy) was monitored by drones, (but) the terrorists were mixed in with the population which prevented air strikes being carried out.”
With Daesh losing ground in Iraq and Syria, hundreds of French citizens belonging to Daesh — and in some cases their children — have started to return to France, oficials there say.
The BBC report showed one witness claiming that French militants were among those allowed to leave Raqqa in mid-october and one suspected militant was recorded saying some French ighters “were heading back to France to carry out attacks.”
At the time an SDF spokesman said 275 Syrian militants left along with their family members, but denied foreign ighters had also left.
Seeking to allay concerns, French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said on Wednesday the threat of an attack was no greater than over the last two years and security services were either arresting or monitoring all those who returned to France.
About 400 men, women and children had returned so far. “There is no massive return. We think that 700 people are still in the zone,” he said, referring to French nationals or those who had resided in the country in the past.
France has contributed to strikes against the militant group in Syria and has special forces operating in the Raqqa region.
Coordinated attacks planned by militants in Raqqa in Paris in November 2015 were the deadliest on French soil since World War Two, killing more 130 people.