Syrian government forces launched an attack on rebels in a southern province on Monday despite a ceasefire, but state media said the assault was against the Islamic State group. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said the assault in Sweida province began in the morning, almost 24 hours into an internationally brokered ceasefire.
"The regime started an attack on the area northeast of Sweida city, backed by air strikes," the monitor said, reporting clashes between government troops and rebel fighters on the ground. One of the targeted groups, the Ahmad al-Abdo Army, said "fierce fighting" was ongoing. Regime forces "launched a big attack today, with huge columns of armoured vehicles and with Syrian air cover," said Firas al-Munjed, the group's communication head.
Both he and the Observatory said regime forces had captured a string of hilltops and villages along the border between the provinces of Sweida and Rural Damascus. But Syrian state media named those same positions as territory that government forces had captured from IS. "Our forces and allies captured several areas, villages, hilltops and commanding positions in the eastern countryside of Sweida after eliminating large numbers of IS terrorists," said the official SANA news agency. The clashes come as a ceasefire for southern Syria negotiated by the United States, Russia and Jordan entered its second day.
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