ISIL Launches Offensive on Homs in Syria

Fighters from the self-proclaimed Islamic State attacked a military airport in the Homs province in Syria on Monday, as part of an operation against Syrian army forces trying to beat back IS and other armed militia groups.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) tells Reuters that the attack on a military airport in Tadmur on Monday morning followed a three-day battle between IS and Syrian soldiers.

IS was trying to block the road from Hama to Aleppo, a major conduit between both cities. Syria’s army has managed to control some territory from the capital city of Damascus through the cities of Homs and Hama to the western coast by defeating the Free Syrian Army and other militias. The fight with IS has been intense, particularly in the Homs and Hama provinces.

Two Syrian national flags hang on a pole as government officials inspect damages in the old city of Homs, Syria

© AP Photo

  

Observatory head Rami Abdulrahman, said IS had killed 74 soldiers in Hama, while Syrian state television is reporting that the Syrian army had killed 19 IS fighters on Monday.

Approximately 200,000 people have been killed in the past four years during Syria’s civil war. A coalition led by the United States is bombing IS-controlled areas in Syria and Iraq, and Kurdish forces have defeated Islamic State fighters in several areas of the northeast.