Landmine blast kills Syrian air defense commander

Chief of Staff of the Syrian Air Defense Force Maj-Gen. Adnan Emran, a brigadier and two other companions were killed as a result of a landmine explosion in the eastern rural outskirts of Damascus on Thursday.
Maj.-Gen. Emran and his entourage were inspecting the military troops and the pro-regime militiamen between AL-Mleiha and Zabadin villages when the landmine blew up, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported this evening.
The deadly blast triggered resentment among the Air Defense personnel who deemed it a great failure of the engineering and mine-erasing crops who finished a demining operation in the region after it was recaptured by the regular troops on August 14.
It coincides with fierce battles in Al-Mleiha between Al-Nusra Front, the ISIL and other Islamist militant groups, on one hand, and the regular troops backed by the Lebanese Hezbollah group and the popular defense corps, on the other.
Former commander of the Air Defense Force Maj.-Gen. Hussein Ishaq was killed in clashes with Al-Nusrah Front on May 18.