Syria’s governmental troops clash with factions in Eastern Ghouta

Syrian governmental fighter jets clashed with opposition factions in Qabon district near the Syrian capital of Damascus on Tuesday amid intensive artillery and missile attacks in the areas surrounding the capital. Meanwhile, sources revealed that the governmental troops held negotiations with opposition factions to allow factions withdraw to Eastern Ghouta, while they failed to reach an agreement.

In the countryside of Damascus, the air force launched air raids on the city of Arbeen in the eastern Ghouta, mortar shells fell on the city of Douma, while the town of Otaya came under artillery bombardment, resulting in injuries. Fierce battles continued between the Army of Islam on one hand and Tahrir Al Sham group and Rahman Corps on the other hand In the eastern Ghouta, as Tahrir Al Sham managed to control the towns of Jisreen and Haza, amid continuing clashes in the towns of Ash'ari, Aftris, Muhammadiyah and Arabin.

The city of Arbeen witnessed demonstrations, as the elements of the Army of Islam shot them leading to a large number of injuries. Violent clashes broke out between the opposition factions and elements of IS in Yarmouk camp south of Damascus, during which a number of elements of the organization were killed. In the countryside of Damascus, the air force launched air raids on the city of Arbeen in the eastern Ghouta, accompanied by artillery shelling on cities and towns in the area, leaving many injured.

Clashes between Jaysh al-Islam and Tahrir al-Sham forces on one hand and forces loyal to IS on the other hand in eastern Ghouta, leaving six civilian deaths, and and more than 60 killed from the ranks of the two sides.

In the same context, IS organization launched an offensive against the positions of the factions, which they liberated in the past few weeks, in the eastern Qalamoun and managed to regain control of the well of al-Manqoura, Zubaida, Dabaa and its surroundings.

In Aleppo, the factions managed to destroy two 14.5-mm machine guns of the regime forces on the front of Al-Zahraa neighborhood, west of Aleppo, while the military aircraft launched air raids on Al-Rashidin. An ISIS attack on Tuesday against a position held by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria killed at least 24 people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said.

The attack on a checkpoint at Rajm al-Salibi, the location of a refugee camp near the border between Syria and Iraq, led to violent clashes, the Observatory reported. More than 30 other people were also injured, it said. The SDF, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab militias, has seized large swathes of northern Syria from Islamic State over the past 18 months and is engaged in a campaign to drive the jihadist group from its de facto regional capital of Raqqa.

On the other hand, Syrian government warplanes struck rebel outposts near the Jordanian border early on Tuesday, rebels said, bringing the war closer to Syria’s U.S.-allied neighbor to the south. The air strikes were the first near that part of the border, a Jordanian official said. They came hours after Syria’s foreign minister warned Jordan against sending troops into his country.

Western-backed rebel groups fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA)’s so-called Southern Front have been active recently in the desert area near the borders with Jordan and Iraq, fighting Islamic State.

“The Syrian regime’s jets conducted four strikes against us,” said Tlas al-Salameh, the commander of Osoud al-Sharqiya, a Western-backed FSA faction which is the largest group operating in the Syrian Desert bordering Jordan.

Salameh said one air strike hit a border area where the rebel group shelters families of its fighters, others hit a rebel outpost 8 km (5 miles) from the Rukban camp where more than 80,000 refugees are stranded.

Salameh, whose group was hit by Russian bombers last year in an attack that angered the Pentagon and Jordan, said there were no casualties from Tuesday’s raids. Salameh said the rebels had retaliated by firing rockets at Khalhala military airport, northeast of the government-held city of Sweida. The Syrian military could not immediately be reached for comment.

The FSA groups financed and equipped by a Western and Arab operations room in Amman have been given more support in recent weeks in the campaign to drive out Islamic State from the area, Western intelligence sources say. The U.S. has expanded the rebels’ Tanf base, further east along the border, which rebels and Western intelligence sources expect will be used as a launchpad for any assault on the IS stronghold of Bukamal on the Syrian-Iraqi border.