Syria fends off massive attack near Hama city

The army and its allies repulsed the attack by an alliance of terrorists led by al-Nusra on the north of the city on Tuesday, a Syrian military source cited by state media said.

“The clashes are continuing and the air force and artillery are targeting the headquarters and movements of the terrorist convoys in the area,” said the source, Reuters reported.

It said the attack by the terrorists was launched on several fronts and that the terrorists suffered losses.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the offensive against government-held areas near Hama was their biggest attack in the area since March. The war monitor added that the attack triggered heavy airstrikes on terrorist-held areas.

The attack near Hama revived hostilities in the northwestern region near the Turkish border that has been relatively calm in recent months as Russian-led diplomacy seeks to shore up cease-fires in western Syria.

 The observatory said the terrorists had captured two villages. Those taking part in the assault included the terrorist Turkistan Islamic Party and terrorists fighting under the banner of the so-called Free Syrian Army.

A media outlet run by the Damascus-allied Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah said Syrian Army airstrikes were targeting terrorists in the northern Hama and southern Idlib area.

Terrorists advanced to within a few kilometers of the government-held city of Hama earlier this year, before the Syrian Army and its allies retook the territory in April.

Cease-fires in western Syria – for years the main theater of the country’s war – have helped the Syrian Army and its allies advance against Daesh in the east, where government forces are battling the terror group at Deir ez-Zor

The Syrian government and its allies have been making steady progress against terrorists in the country. Most recently, they have been making headway in Deir ez-Zor province.

Deir ez-Zor is an important battleground. Daesh has mobilized its forces and moved heavy weaponry to the province to make it its main staging area in the face of increasing defeats elsewhere in the country. The liberation of a stretch of land in Deir ez-Zor that borders Iraq would be particularly important because it would stop the terrorists’ cross-border transit to and from Iraq.