Syrian fighter jets strike militant positions near capital: Report
Syrian fighter jets have conducted precision strikes against positions held by foreign-backed militants near the capital Damascus, inflicting casualties on their ranks and damage on their hardware and equipment, Syrian state media reports.
Syria’s official SANA news agency on Sunday, citing military sources, said that the airstrikes pounded militants’ dens and command and communication centers in Hajar al-Aswad district in the capital’s periphery, adding that the counter-terror operation was supported by intensive artillery and rocket fire.
The report further said that the operation inflicted heavy losses upon the terrorists’ ranks, destroying their fortified positions, hotbeds, and supply routes.
Terrorists’ ammo caches were also destroyed while the army units were advancing from a number of directions and expanding control over the district’s outskirts, the report said.
The Syrian army on April 14 declared the liberation of the town of Douma after the last pockets of militants from the so-called Jaish al-Islam group and their families left their last bastion in the Eastern Ghouta countryside of Damascus.
The militants and their relatives were fully evacuated to the militant-held city of Jarablus in northern Syria.
The Syrian army continues its push to secure Damascus and its surroundings after it liberated the entire Eastern Ghouta last week on the back of both military operations and evacuation deals with the militants there.
The country is also preparing to cleanse the southern districts of Damascus, including Yarmouk, of the Takfiri terrorists of Daesh and al-Nusra Front.
On Saturday, Syrian jets also targeted Daesh positions in Hajar al-Aswad. A Daesh hideout and their ammunition depots were destroyed. The area is much smaller than Eastern Ghouta.
Daesh was defeated by the Syrian army and its allies late last year after three years of afflicting the country with unrelenting bloodshed and destruction.
The army, however, is on alert to get rid of pockets of Daesh remnants still active in the country.
