Russia Strikes ISIS Positions in Eastern Syria

 A picture taken during a press tour provided by the Russian armed forces shows Russian soldiers standing guard in a central street in Syria's eastern city of Deir Ezzor, as locals pass by, on Sept. 15, 2017. Photo by DOMINIQUE DERDA/AFP
A picture taken during a press tour provided by the Russian armed forces shows Russian soldiers standing guard in a central street in Syria's eastern city of Deir Ezzor, as locals pass by, on Sept. 15, 2017. Photo by DOMINIQUE DERDA/AFP
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Russia Strikes ISIS Positions in Eastern Syria

 A picture taken during a press tour provided by the Russian armed forces shows Russian soldiers standing guard in a central street in Syria's eastern city of Deir Ezzor, as locals pass by, on Sept. 15, 2017. Photo by DOMINIQUE DERDA/AFP
A picture taken during a press tour provided by the Russian armed forces shows Russian soldiers standing guard in a central street in Syria's eastern city of Deir Ezzor, as locals pass by, on Sept. 15, 2017. Photo by DOMINIQUE DERDA/AFP

Hours after ISIS announced its responsibility for killing a Russian major general in Syria’s Deir Ezzor, a squadron of Russian warplanes attacked the terrorist group’s positions in the Syrian Desert.

The groups' Amaq News Agency said that a Russian patrol passed over a minefield planted by the militias in the city of Sukhnah, which lead to the death of one major general, while two servicemen were wounded.

Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that a Russian major general was killed in eastern Syria’s Deir Ezzor on Tuesday after a convoy hit an IED.

The IED attack reportedly took place near the At-Taim oil field, about 15km outside the city of Deir Ezzor.

The Ministry said that as a result of the explosion, three Russian servicemen were injured.

“During evacuation and while receiving medical assistant, a senior Russian military advisor with the rank of major-general died from the serious injuries sustained,” it wrote in a statement.

For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a squadron of seven Russian jets flying over the Syrian Desert in Homs and Al-Suwaidaa executed several airstrikes, targeting ISIS positions.

Also, Observatory activists documented the killing of three regime soldiers and the injury of three others in an IED explosion in Sadd Al-Zalaf area in Al-Suwaidaa desert.

It said that since March 24, 2019, SOHR has documented the killing of at least 658 regime soldiers and loyalists of Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities, including at least two Russians, and 140 Iranian-backed militiamen of non-Syrian nationalities. All were killed in attacks, bombings and ambushes by ISIS west of Euphrates in the deserts of Deir Ezzor, Homs, and Al-Suwaidaa.

Meanwhile, the war-monitor quoted sources as saying that the large-scale campaign by regime’s intelligence service is still underway, targeting regime officers and soldiers, as well as employees and other individuals working in businesses and associations belonging to Rami Makhlouf, the cousin of Syrian regime president Bashar Assad.

SOHR activists have confirmed that 39 regime officers and soldiers were arrested in the past few days and weeks, while 15 others who had been arrested previously were released. The regime’s intelligence service also arrested 22 former fighters in “Al-Bostan Association”.

It said that in the past months, Syrian Intelligence service have arrested nearly 200 regime officers, soldiers and ex-fighters in Makhlouf’s “military wing.”



UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
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UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)

More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Al-Assad on Dec. 8, including 800,000 people displaced inside the country and 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.

“Since the fall of the regime in Syria, we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.

“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.

Last January, the UN's high commissioner for refugees urged the international community to back Syria's reconstruction efforts to facilitate the return of millions of refugees.

“Lift the sanctions, open up space for reconstruction. If we don't do it now at the beginning of the transition, we waste a lot of time,” Grandi told a press conference in Ankara, after returning from a trip in Lebanon and Syria.

At a meeting in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Türkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”

The meeting's final statement also pledged support for Syria's new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”

Meanwhile, AFP reported on Tuesday that displaced people are returning to their neighborhoods in Homs, where rebels first took up arms to fight Assad's crackdown on protests in 2011, only to find them in ruins.

In Homs, the Syrian military had besieged and bombarded opposition areas such as Baba Amr, where US journalist Marie Colvin was killed in a bombing in 2012.

“The house is burned down, there are no windows, no electricity,” said Duaa Turki at her dilapidated home in Khaldiyeh neighborhood.

“We removed the rubble, laid a carpet” and moved in, said the 30-year-old mother of four.

“Despite the destruction, we're happy to be back. This is our neighborhood and our land.”

Duaa’s husband spends his days looking for a job, she said, while they hope humanitarian workers begin distributing aid to help the family survive.