Source: Press TV
Twenty civilians, including women and children, have been killed in airstrikes carried out by the coalition led by the United States in the town of Hajin situated in Syria’s eastern province of [Deir Ezzor]

Local sources, requesting anonymity, told Syria’s official news agency SANA that nine children and eight women were among the dead after an airstrike targeted a local market on Saturday.

No statement has been made about the number of wounded people.

Earlier in the day, SANA reported another coalition strike in the same province, where 11 civilians, including three women and five children, were killed.

Coalition aircraft have been regularly striking civilian targets and residential areas in [Deir Ezzor] under the pretext of targeting Daesh Takfiri terrorists. The strikes have led to the displacement of hundreds of civilians.

Last week, the so-called coalition killed at least 40 people after its warplanes struck the village of al-Buqa’an on the outskirts of Hajin.

On November 15, local reports claimed coalition warplanes had killed 23 civilians, including 17 people of the same family, after firing missiles at buildings in the village of Albu Badran.

The regular strikes on Syrian civilians, notably a bloody attack on the town of al-Shaafah with 60 casualties on November 13, have prompted the response of the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, which has stated the massacre clearly points to the fact that members of the military alliance have no respect for moral values and international regulations.

Earlier this month, the ministry had also sent two separate letters, addressed to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the rotating president of the UN Security Council, Ma Zhaoxu, calling on the Council to fulfill its responsibilities and stop US-led aerial assaults.

Furthermore, the US-led coalition has on multiple occasions used internationally-banned white phosphorus munitions in bombing raids across the province, according to various sources including Human Rights Watch.

The Russian Foreign Ministry recently slammed US military operations in the country, expressing concern for the use of white phosphorus and continued terrorist training operations.

The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes inside Syria since September 2014, without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate.

The coalition has, however, been largely incapable of achieving its declared goal of “destroying Daesh.”

Source: Press TV
The Syrian government has demanded an independent and international mechanism to investigate the crimes being perpetrated against civilians by the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, in two separate letters addressed to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the rotating president of the UN Security Council Ma Zhaoxu on Saturday, stated that the Friday airstrikes by the US-led coalition against the eastern town of Hajin near the Iraqi border, which claimed the lives of at least 26 local civilians, including 14 children, once again exposed Washington’s false claims of combating terrorism and revealed that the military alliance had no respect whatsoever for the lives of innocent people and international law.

The letters added that the US-led coalition’s goals were to kill as many Syrian people as possible, further destroy Syria’s infrastructure, undermine the country’s future, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and hinder a political settlement of the ongoing crisis.

“All these attempts constitute a blatant violation of all United Nations Security Council resolutions on Syria,” the Syrian foreign ministry said.

“Whilst the United States and its allies continue to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Security Council has maintained an awkward silence and failed to take any measure to stop these misdeeds,” it pointed out.

The Syrian foreign ministry highlighted that the Damascus government had on several occasions pointed to the US-led coalition’s systematically barbaric attacks against innocent civilians, and its use of internationally banned weapons, including white phosphorus bombs.

The ministry then called on the UN Security Council to shoulder its responsibilities, and propose an independent and international mechanism to help stop the coalition’s crimes, investigate them and punish their perpetrators.

The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate.

The military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of achieving its declared goal of destroying Daesh.

By R. Jazaeri
Source: SANA
Sweida – Army units continued to advance in the depth of the rocky cliffs in the area
of al-Safa hills in Sweida eastern Badyia (desert) after violent clashes with Daesh (ISIS) terrorists.

SANA reporter in Sweida said that army units, in cooperation with the supporting forces, advanced over an area of 1 km in the area of al-Safa hills, establishing control over strategic areas and many caves used by Daesh terrorists as fortified positions.

The reporter added that the new advancement came after violent clashes between army units backed by the supporting forces and terrorists, as scores of terrorists were killed and others were injured while the remnants fled away.

The reporter indicated that the army air force and artillery conducted precision bombardments against positions, dens and fortifications of Daesh terrorists in the depth of the rocky cliffs, inflicting heavy losses upon them amid a state of collapse among their ranks after destroying their defense lines and depriving them of their water resources.

Source: RT
Islamic State managed to regain access to Syrian oil fields and make profits from selling oil, a new UN report reveals. While the UN did not point fingers, the IS reemergence seems to occur in areas held by the US-backed forces.

“Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant [IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS], having been defeated militarily in Iraq and most of the Syrian Arab Republic during 2017, rallied in early 2018. This was the result of a loss of momentum by forces fighting it in the east of the Syrian Arab Republic,” the recent report from the UN Security Council’s Sanctions Monitoring Team reads. The document is dated July 27, but was only released to the public this week.

The slow-down gave IS “breathing space to prepare for the next phase of its evolution into a global covert network.” As of June 2018, the terrorist group has been controlling “small pockets of territory in the Syrian Arab Republic on the Iraqi border,” effectively carrying on with its quasi-state ways.

[IS] was able to extract and sell some oil, and to mount attacks, including across the border into Iraq,” the reports stated, adding that the terrorist group regained “access to some oil fields in northeastern” Syria.

While the report did not specify which forces exactly were having troubles with “momentum,” northeastern Syria is located on the left bank of the Euphrates river, controlled by the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia backed by the US-led coalition.

Regaining control of the oil fields allowed IS to yet again make oil profits a significant source of revenue. The report also vaguely stated that IS continues to impose “taxes” on civilians “in areas it controls, as well as in contested areas,” as well as to kidnap local businessmen for ransom.

Apart from strengthening of IS-held “pockets” in northeastern Syria, the report also listed a number of hotspots in Syria, which might be sources of further IS reemergence. Among them, the UN named the Rukban refugee camp, located near the Al-Tanf US military base. Other IS-infested places listed in the report include unspecified locations in the Aleppo province and an area controlled by an IS-affiliated group in the Deraa province. The latter, however, was already eradicated late in July during the Syrian Army offensive in the south-west of the country.

The issue of the Rukban refugee camp has been repeatedly raised by Moscow and Damascus, who repeatedly urged the US to cooperate. Earlier in August, Colonel General Sergey Rudskoy, the head of operations of the Russian General Staff, described Rukban as place where “people are living in harsh conditions and where terrorists find shelter.”

“Our American partners should provide humanitarian access to Rukban as soon as possible, provide passage for the refugees to their home areas and withdraw the base from Al-Tanf,” Rudskoy stated.

Source: Press TV
The Iraqi Air Force has attacked the “operations room” of Daesh in neighboring Syria, killing several militants plotting to carry out a terrorist operation in Iraq in coming days, the Iraqi Interior Ministry has announced.

According to the Interior Ministry’s Security Media Center, the air raids completely destroyed a Daesh task force working on a plan to launch a terrorist attack inside the Iraqi territory and target civilians using suicide vests within the next few days.

Several terrorists were killed in the “successful” airstrikes carried out by the Iraqi F-16 fighter jets on Thursday, the ministry’s statement said.

The airstrikes came a month after the Iraqi artillery fire killed a Daesh ringleader and several other militants in an attack against the Takfiris’ positions in the Syrian border region of Sousa.

Since last year, the Iraqi military has been conducting air raids on Daesh positions in Syria with the approval of the Syrian government.

Baghdad has already announced it is working closely with the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to monitor and target terrorist positions.

Back in April, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced that his country’s security forces would chase down Daesh militants in the entire region, not just in Iraq.

The Iraqi airstrikes are reportedly launched based on the intelligence retrieved from the security coordination committee formed between Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Russia years ago.

Although Abadi declared his country’s final victory over Daesh in December 2017, the terrorist group is still operating sporadically in areas near the Syrian border as well as Iraq’s northeastern mountainous region.

By H. Zain/ Ghossoun
Source: SANA
Sweida – A massive popular funeral ceremony has been held on Thursday for the martyrs of the terrorist attacks targeted Sweida, SANA reporter said.

The participants in the funeral said that Sweida will ever remain an immune fortress in the face of terrorism as it offers sacrifices to defend the homeland.

They expressed readiness to defend their homeland and sacrifice their souls in defending its dignity, security and stability and eliminating the mercenary terrorists from each inch of the Syrian land.

On Wednesday, a number of citizens were martyred and others were injured in terrorist suicide bombing attacks in Sweida city synchronizing with Daesh (ISIS) attacks on a number of villages in the eastern and northern countryside of the province.