Homs | Regime forces arrest people, including National Defence commander, for “cooperating with ISIS”

Homs province: Reliable sources have told SOHR that regime security forces have sent patrols of military police branch in Palmyra to Al-Sukhnah city in Homs countryside to arrest several persons, including a commander of National Defence Forces known by his initials as M. K. who is relative to a man known as Al-Sheikh F. S. The commander has been arrested for “cooperating with ISIS.”

SOHR sources have confirmed that many efforts to release those arrested men are going on by their acquaintances.

On April 4, SOHR activists reported that patrols of the Desert Intelligence branch and the Military Security station stormed houses in two villages, under the pretext that there were weapons in the villages, and arrested several young men for “communicating with their relatives in the Syrian north and Al-Rukban camp” and took them to the stations of both villages.

On February 2, Iranian-backed military groups conducted combing campaigns in search of ISIS cells deployed in Palmyra desert, east of Homs, in Jabal Hayan, located west of Palmyra, in the middle of a highway Deir Ezzor, Palmyra, Homs, Deir Ezzor, Palmyra and Damascus.

The combing operation had been preceded by flights of regime helicopters over the area.

It is worth noting that Jabal Helan is characterized by its height, rugged mountainous nature and the presence of Romanian caves and water wells and is a springboard for ISIS attacks in the region.