13 fighters loyal to Damascus killed in ISIL 'ambush'

Thirteen fighters loyal to the regime forces were killed on Saturday in an "ambush" carried out by ISIL in eastern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which expressed its fear of the organization's recent increase in activities, Report informs via Roya News.

Since the announcement of the elimination of its caliphate in March 2019 and the loss of all areas of its control, the organization has retreated to the Syrian Badia, which extends between the governorates of Homs (central) and Deir ez-Zor (east) at the border with Iraq, where its fighters are holed up in mountainous areas.

The observatory stated that the extremist organization "carried out the ambush in the Al-Masrib desert in the western countryside of Deir Ez-Zor," which led to the killing of "at least 13 members of a local group loyal to the regime forces and wounding others while they were combing the area."

"The death toll is the highest among the regime forces and their loyalists for nearly five months," the director of the observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.

With the increase in the ISIL attacks on the regime forces, the desert has turned into a scene of clashes, sometimes punctuated by Russian raids in support of the government forces, targeting the organization's fighters' positions and movements.

Since March 24, 2019, the observatory has documented the killing of 1,593 members of the government forces and militiamen loyal to them.

Syria has been witnessing a bloody conflict since 2011, which has caused the deaths of nearly half a million people, caused massive damage to infrastructure, and led to the displacement of millions of people inside and outside the country.