Syrian regime forces target village in Idlib with 80 shells

The international coalition to combat the ISIS announced on Wednesday that less than 1,000 of the terrorist’s group remain in Iraq and Syria. This is a third of the estimated figure only three weeks ago, the US0led coalition said.

Iraq and Syria have both declared victory over ISIS in recent weeks, after a year that saw the two countries’ armies, a range of foreign allies and various local forces drive the fighters out of all the towns and villages that they had seized.

The United States has led an international coalition conducting air strikes against ISIS since 2014 when the group swept across a third of Iraq. US troops have served as advisers on the ground with Iraqi government forces and with Kurdish and Arab groups in Syria.

“Due to the commitment of the Coalition and the demonstrated competence of our partners in Iraq and Syria, there are estimated to be less than 1,000 ISIS terrorists in our combined joint area of operations, most of whom are being hunted down in the desert regions in eastern Syria and Western Iraq,” the coalition added.

The figure excludes areas in western Syria under the control of the Syrian regime and its allies.

Russia also said on Wednesday the main battle with ISIS in Syria was over. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the key task in Syria was now destroying another group, the Nusra Front.

The US-led coalition had said on December 5 that there were less than 3,000 fighters remaining. Iraq declared “final victory” over the group on December 9.

Most of the fighters had been killed or captured over the past three years, the coalition said on Wednesday. It would not respond to a question on whether some fighters could have escaped to other countries, saying it would not “engage in public speculation” but said it was working on preventing that.

“We can tell you that we are working with our partners to kill or capture all remaining ISIS terrorists, to destroy their network and prevent their resurgence, and also to prevent them from escaping to bordering countries,” it said.

The opposition factions however managed to find them before they could be rescued. In the southern and eastern Idlib countryside, the Observatory said that 20 people have been killed in regime bombardment that has been ongoing since Monday.

It also reported on fierce battles that had erupted once again between regime forces and opposition factions. The fighting was focused on the outskirts of al-Mshayrfa, al-Katiba, Tal al-Aswad and the villages of Ras al-Ain and Qobayat Um al-Huda.

The Observatory said that the regime made advances in the region and it is trying to reinforce its positions in al-Katiba and Tal al-Aswad.Clashes continue at a pace of violent between the regime forces supported by the regime forces and the militiamen loyal to them against the rebel and Islamic factions and Hayyaat Tahrir Al-Sham in areas southwest of Rif Dimashq.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored the regime forces continuing their violent attack attempting to achieve an advancement at the expense of the factions, and controlling more places of the besieged area remaining under the control the factions and Hayyaat Tahrir al-Sham.

This attack is concentrated in areas hundreds of meters away of Beit Jinn Farm and the outskirts of Mughr al-Mir town, where the regime forces were able in the past few days to firearm-control the road between the areas of Beit Jinn Farm, Beit Jinn town and Mughr al-Mir town, and closing the roads in front of the fighters between the mentioned areas.

On humanitarian side, Medical evacuations in the rebel-held eastern Ghouta region got underway on Wednesday after months of delays, announced the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Pictures posted with the tweets appeared to show a convoy of ambulances ready to move the critically ill patients from the Damascus suburb. The Syrian American Medical Society, another medical relief organization, said the evacuations covered "29 critical cases, approved for medical evacuation to Damascus. Four patients were evacuated today."

It said the remainder would be evacuated in the coming days. Eastern Ghouta is one of the last remaining rebel strongholds in Syria and has been under a tight regime siege since 2013, causing severe food and medical shortages for some 400,000 residents.

The Syrian Red Crescent said in a tweet that its volunteers "just started to transfer cases in need of medical care from east Ghouta to hospitals in Damascus after long negotiations".

Last week, Jan Egeland, the head of the UN's humanitarian taskforce for Syria, warned that at least 16 people had died while waiting for evacuation from Eastern Ghouta.

He said a list put together several months ago of nearly 500 civilians in desperate need of evacuation was rapidly shrinking. "That number is going down, not because we are evacuating people, but because they are dying," he told reporters in Geneva.

"We have confirmation of 16 having died on these lists since they were resubmitted in November, and it is probably higher," he said, highlighting the case of a baby who died on December 14, as the latest round of Syria peace talks in Geneva ended in failure.

Egeland said evacuations and efforts to bring aid into the region had been blocked by a lack of authorizations from the Syrian authorities.