Siege of Deir ez-Zor

The U.S. has started construction of two new military bases in Syria's oil-rich Deir ez-Zor governorate.

One of the three suspected members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) detained in the northwestern Turkish province of Sakarya could be the "emir" of Syria's Deir ez-Zor region, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on May 2, just five days after another suspected Deir ez-Zor "emir" was caught in Turkey.

A Russian general was killed while battling Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants near the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor, Moscow's defense ministry has said.

Syrian troops seized a suburb of the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on Sept. 17, tightening the noose around Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a Syrian military source said.

The army pushed into the city this month with the help of Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, breaking an ISIL siege of an enclave there that had lasted three years.

The Islamic State media reported, on Thursday, that 100 civilians were either killed or wounded in air strikes carried out by Russian warplanes, in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor, Iraqi News reports.

An aid convoy arrived at Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria on Sept. 7, bringing supplies to soldiers and civilians days after the Syrian army broke a three-year Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) siege, Syrian state media reported.

None of the sides can claim victory in the Syrian civil war, U.N. peace talks mediator Staffan de Mistura said on Sept. 6, adding that Syria's opposition must accept that they have not won the six-and-a-half year war against President Bashar al-Assad.

Syrian government forces advanced against Islamic State on Tuesday to reach troops surrounded for years by the jihadists in a government-held enclave in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, pro-Damascus media outlets and a monitoring group reported, quoted by Reuters.

With a sudden lunge through jihadist lines, the Syrian military  and its allies on Sept. 4 came to within three kilometres of relieving the Euphrates city of Deir al-Zor, where Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has besieged an army garrison and 93,000 civilians for years. 

The forces of the Syrian regime have progressed even further towards the city of Deir ez Zor, the enclave of government surrounded by the Islamic State group in the eastern part of the country. This was announced today by the Syrian Human Rights Observatory quoted by the agencies.