Terrorists contaminate drinking water in Damascus with diesel

Authorities in the Syrian capital Damascus say they have been forced to cut water supplies to the city for a couple of days after terrorists contaminated the drinking water with diesel.  

The Damascus City Water Supply and Sewerage Authority made the announcement in a brief statement posted on its official website on Friday, adding that the water cut would include both the capital and its suburbs.

The statement further said that the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Local Administration had ordered authorities in the provinces of Rif Dimashq and Damascus to start using water reserves until the problem was resolved “in the next few days.”

The al-Fija spring, which supplies the capital with water, is located in the militant-held Souq Wadi Barada village, northwest of Damascus, in a mountainous terrain near the Lebanese border. Much of the surrounding areas are controlled by Syrian government troops.

The terrorists’ desperate attack on water resources came a few days after Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, was fully liberated from the grips of Takfiri terrorist groups. The city was the last major urban area controlled by terrorists.

The latest gain puts Damascus back in control of Syria’s five main cities: Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Damascus and Latakia.

Aleppo’s liberation is seen as a crushing blow to the militants and their foreign supporters, who have been actively working to topple the Damascus government since March 2011.

UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed since the onset of the militancy. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.