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News > World

IS Group Used Mustard Gas in Attack on Airport: Syrian State TV

  • Islamic State group flag

    Islamic State group flag | Photo: Reuters

Published 5 April 2016
Opinion

The Syrian army backed by heavy Russian airstrikes have made progress in the fight against the Islamic State group.

Islamic State group militants attacked Syrian army troops with mustard gas in an offensive against a Syrian military airport in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor that borders Iraq, state media said on late Monday.

Syrian state media did not disclose how many casualties were sustained in the latest drive by the hardline fundamentalist Sunni militants to capture the heavily defended airport located south of Deir al Zor city, whose main neighborhoods are under the militants control.

"The terrorists fired rockets carrying mustard gas," a statement said on state owned Ikhbariyah television station.

Deir al-Zor is a strategic location. The province links Islamic State group's de facto capital in Raqqa with its fighters in Iraq.

Reuters could not independently verify the media reports.

The Syrian army backed by heavy Russian airstrikes was able last January to drive back the hardline militants from several villages near the airport but has so far failed to dislodge them.

The Syrian army had earlier said that at least four hundred al-Qaida affiliated Nusra Front led militants fully equipped with heavy arms staged a major attack on army outposts in the Aleppo countryside.

The army statement also said at least eight civilians were killed in mortar attacks by rebels on residential areas of Sheikh Maqsoud with scores injured.

A fragile "cessation of hostilities" truce has held in Syria for over a month as the various parties to the conflict try to negotiate an end to Syria's civil war.

But the truce excludes Islamic State and the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front. Air and land attacks by Syrian and allied forces continue in parts of Syria where the government says the groups are present.

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