The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

The regime forces continue their operation to take control of Al-Sukhnah City and reduce the distance between them and their forces coming from the operation of Al-Raqqah Countryside

The violent clashes are continuing between the regime forces and gunmen loyal to them of Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities on one hand and the “Islamic State” organization on the other, in areas in the vicinity of Al-Sukhnah City which is the last city controlled by the “Islamic State” organization in Homs Province, where the regime forces fight fiercely to control it and finish the organization’s presence. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned that the violent clashes accompanied by intense shelling by the regime forces by tanks, artillery, mortar and rockets, in addition to intensive raids by Russian warplanes and the warplanes of the regime forces, and if the regime forces were able to achieve new advancement and take control over the city of Al-Sukhnah, they would have finished the presence of the organization in the last city controlled by it in Homs Province, and thus the presence of the organization will be limited to villages near the mountains of Shomariyyeh and other villages in the desert of Al-Sukhnah and oil fields and highlands scattered in the Syrian Desert in the countryside of Homs.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights observed that if the regime forces were able to take control of the city of Al-Sukhnah, then about 40 kilometers will be separating them from reaching their forces who are coming from the southern countryside of Al-Raqqah, who entered the administrative border of Homs coming from Al-Raqqah for the first time on the 14th of July 2017, where they managed to control oil fields and wells in the far north-east of Homs.