Syria, Hezbollah forces advance at border
Syrian government forces, backed by members of Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group, advance from different directions in the mountain resort of Zabadani near the border with Lebanon. The fighting comes as Ahrar al-Sham insurgent group say that it has stopped communicating with Iranian mediators after they insisted that fighters and residents leave the resort. Ahrar al-Sham says the government aims to clear out the area’s Sunni Muslim population. Syrian opposition groups accuse the government and Hezbollah of displacing thousands of Sunnis from areas along the border with Lebanon and preventing them from returning to their homes.
Coalition warplanes target areas held by the Islamic State group near the town of Tabqa in the northern province of Raqqa, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered, a local activist group. The Observatory says the airstrikes killed at least five IS fighters and wounded 23, including teenage fighters of the so-called ‘Cubs of the Caliphate.’
Army seeks to cut supply line
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says regime forces had taken the villages of Bashkawi and Sefat and are battling to block the key highway leading from rebel-held east Aleppo to the Turkish border. The fighting stops traffic on the road, which passes through the town of Tal Rifat and up to the border. They also says fierce clashes are also raging between rebel forces and government troops in the nearby villages of Ratyan and Hardtaneen. It says regime fighters are shelling the town of Hayan, which lies on the road to two government-held villages that rebels have besieged for more than 18 months. Observatory director:
The regime troops have two goals in the area: to cut the road leading from Aleppo to the Turkish border, which is the key supply road for the rebels and to open the way to (besieged) Nubol and Zahraa,