The regime forces expand their control to about 80% of al-Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood after counterattacks in the area after absorbing the counterattacks of ISIS

Damascus Province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: the military operations continue in the southern neighborhoods of the capital Damascus, accompanied by artillery and missile shelling, aerial bombardment for the 26th consecutive day, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored violent clashes between the regime forces supported by al-Quds al-Filastini Brigade and their loyal gunmen of Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities against members of the “Islamic State” organization, which was concentrated at the outskirts Yarmouk Camp and in the neighborhoods of al-Tadamon and al-Hajar al-Aswad, and the regime forces were able to achieve an advancement after being able to absorb the counterattacks of the organization, where the regime forces carried out counterattacks that enabled them to advance in al-Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood, extending their control for more than 80% of the area of al-Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood, and now only the northern section of the neighbourhood is left for the organization, amid continuous attacks by the regime forces in order to achieve more advancement and to end the presence of the organization in al-Hajar al-Aswad after ending it in al-Kadam neighborhood, also the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored the regime forces achieving an advancement at the western and eastern outskirts of Yarmouk Camp, and controlling schools, buildings and sites used to be controlled by the organization.

The regime forces and through these successive attacks after absorbing the organization’s attacks; seek to confine the “Islamic State” organization in the narrowest possible circle, to force it to surrender and return to the previous agreement, or to reach a new agreement that would require the organization to get out of its entire remaining area south of the capital Damascus, while the violent clashes between both parties were accompanied with bombardment by warplanes and shelling by helicopter using missiles and barrel bombs, shelling by artillery shells and missile believed to be ground-to-ground, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored more casualties in the ranks of both parties, where it rose to 215 at least, the number of members of the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them of Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities, who have been killed since Thursday the 19th of April 2018, including 26 officers and 9 of them were executed, while it has increased to 177, the number of members of the organization who were killed in the shelling, clashes and targeting that left tens of wounded in the ranks of the both parties, and the death toll is expected to rise because of the continued combat operations and the presence of injured cases in critical situation.