Syrian forces retake Deir Ezzor hospital after ‘major’ Daesh offensive

BEIRUT — Syrian government forces retook a hospital in Deir Ezzor after the Daesh terror group attacked it on Saturday following a dawn offensive by the militants on the besieged eastern Syrian city, a war monitor and state media said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors Syria's five-year-long war, said Daesh had killed at least 35 members of the Syrian armed forces and detained some medical staff from the hospital.

The fighting in and around the hospital also killed at least 24 Daesh militants, the observatory said.

Daesh’s Amaq news agency said its fighters staged a "major offensive" on the southwestern edge of Deir Ezzor on Saturday, storming the Assad Hospital and cutting the supply route between the a Syrian army base and the airport.

Daesh controls most of Deir Ezzor province and has laid siege since March last year to the remaining government-held areas in the city of the same name, which is close to Syria's eastern border with Iraq.

Deir Ezzor province links Daesh’s de facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa with territory controlled by the militant group in neighbouring Iraq.

Daesh also said it had taken control of a check point, a fire station, university accommodation, grain silos and some territory near the Al Tayyam oil fields, in the vicinity of the state-held military airport on the city's southern edge.

Russia's RIA state news agency on Saturday reported a source within the air base on the southern edge of the city as saying an Daesh attack had been repelled.

The observatory and Amaq said there were ongoing fierce clashes between government forces and Daesh in the area of the attack.

Daesh said it killed at least 80 government troops, took three prisoner and destroyed a number of armoured vehicles.

The Syrian government and its Russian allies make regular aid drops into the encircled city and there are frequent air strikes on Daesh targets in and around Deir Ezzor.