Monitor: 58 Syria government fighters killed in ISIS attacks
ISIS militants killed at least 58 Syrian government troops and militia as the militants put up fierce resistance to a Russian-backed offensive against some of its last bastions, a monitor said Friday.
Most of Thursday’s dead came south of the desert town of Sukna, east of the ancient city of Palmyra, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
ISIS put out a statement claiming to have killed scores of regime fighters in the area and also released what it said was an audio recording of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi urging resistance, his first in months.
Syrian troops pushed through the vast desert that separates the main cities of the west from the Euphrates Valley this summer and broke a three-year ISIS siege of government enclaves in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor earlier this month.
Source: Al Arabiya