After about 20 days of controlling it by the “Islamic State” organization… the regime forces start a massive offensive to restore al-Qaryatayn city
Homs province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: Violent clashes are taking place since the early morning hours of Saturday the 21st of October 2017 in Al-Qaryatayn city, which is about 70 km southeast of Homs city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored the outbreak of violent clashes between the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them of Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities against members of the “Islamic State” organization in the city, which has been under the control of ISIS since the beginning of this month, where the clashes are accompanied by intensive targeting by the regime forces for sites and areas controlled by the organization in the city, accompanied by explosions caused by exchange of targeting in the clashes areas between both parties.
This violent attack by the regime forces comes after a failure and successive attempts to regain control of the city, since it was controlled by the “Islamic State” organization on the 1st of October 2017, after a sudden infiltration operation carried out deep in regime forces’ controlled areas in the southeastern desert of Homs, also the surroundings of the city has witnessed during the past few days the advancement of the regime forces and regaining control of highlands they lost in the vicinity of al-Qaryatayn and the surrounding hills, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights published yesterday night that an officer with the rank of a colonel who is a commander of a battalion of the Division-11 Tanks in the regime forces, with other 3 members of the regime forces, by an explosion of a booby trapped vehicle carried out by the “Islamic State” organization, and targeted a position of the regime forces in the outskirts of the city, the explosion also caused the fall of a number of wounded, some of them have seriously injured, which may increase the death toll.
And the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights published in the 7th of October 2017, that a booby trapped vehicle targeted a position of the regime forces resulted in the death of an officer with the rank of a lieutenant colonel and he is the commander of a Special Tasks Unit in the Internal Security in Homs, with other 5 members were with him.