PRESS RELEASE
Syrian Army Breaks ISIS Siege of Deir Ezzor
Sept. 5, 2017 (EIRNS)—The Syrian government announced today that Syrian army units broke through the last ISIS defense around the city of Deir Ezzor, breaking the siege of that city, finally, after three years. The breakthrough apparently followed "a sudden lunge through jihadist lines," yesterday, as Reuters reported it, up the road from Al Sukhnah which brought Syrian army units to within 3 km of ISIS defensive lines outside the city. "Islamic State is in confusion. There is no leadership or centralized control," a commander in the military alliance supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told Reuters.
The Syrian army was aided by a Russian cruise missile strike from the Admiral Essen frigate in the Mediterranean that destroyed ISIS targets in the village of Ash Sholah, along the Syrian line of advance. "The launches of Kalibr cruise missiles ensured the advance of the Syrian government forces, as well as thwarted plans of Daesh [IS/ISIS] militants in the area of Deir Ezzor," said the Russian Defense Ministry. The lifting of the siege of Deir Ezzor "will lead to the complete defeat of the most combat-effective formations of the Daesh terrorist group in Syria," Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, the chief of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate said during a briefing on Aug. 25, reports Sputnik.
Celebrations are reported to have broken out among Deir Ezzor’s residents.
Al Masdar News reports that now that the army has reached Deir Ezzor city, it is shifting its attention to the airport immediately to the southeast of the city. It is probably reasonable to assume that once the army has consolidated and strengthened its position in Dier Ezzor, its next phase of operations will be down the Euphrates River towards the Iraqi border.
