No fewer than 13 combatants and three civilians were killed on Thursday in Syria’s southern province of Daraa during the fiercest clashes there since the area came under regime control, a war monitor has revealed.
The Russian-backed Syrian army and allied forces recaptured Daraa from rebels in 2018, a symbolic blow to the anti-government uprising born there in 2011.
State institutions have returned, but the army still hasn’t deployed across the whole province, and tit-for-tat bombings and assassinations between former opposition figures and regime forces have since become routine.
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Africa Daily News, New York reports that tensions heightened on Thursday, leading to what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights called the “most violent and broadest clashes in Daraa since it came under regime control”.
Fighting started when regime forces fired artillery shells towards the former opposition hub of Daraa al-Balad in tandem with a ground push, the Britain-based war monitor said.
In response, gunmen launched a counterattack across many parts of the Daraa countryside, where they seized several regime positions and captured dozens of regime fighters.
“Eight Syrian regime and allied militia fighters died during clashes across Daraa province in recent hours,” the Observatory said.
‘Gunmen also captured more than 40 members of the regime forces’ in Daraa’s western and eastern countryside, it said.
According to the Observatory, artillery fire from regime forces in several areas killed five gunmen and three civilians, including a mother and her child.
Many former rebels stayed in Daraa instead of evacuating under a Moscow-brokered deal, either joining the army or remaining in control of parts of the province.
Daraa al-Balad, a southern district of Daraa city, is among the areas controlled by former opposition forces.
The pro-government Al-Watan newspaper on Thursday said the Syrian army had started ‘a military operation against hideouts of terrorists who thwarted a reconciliation deal.’
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
