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IS assault in intensifies in Syria’s Deir al-Zor, dozens killed while humanitarian operation halted

The Islamic State has launched its fiercest assault in a year against a besieged Syrian government enclave in the city of Deir al-Zor, trying to cut it off from a nearby military air base, in a battle that has killed dozens of people. A Syrian military source said that the fighting was intense, saying that the attack was one of the fiercest attempts by the extreme Muslim group to seize the city’s airport. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the Islamic State successfully cut the road linking the city’s air base to the rest of the government enclave, meaning that the government aid was only possible through air-drops – even though the report was denied by the government source. 

The Islamic State advanced into Deir al-Zor and the surrounding area in 2015 and managed to besiege it last year, but Assad’s army retained control of the city’s airport and neighboring districts in the city, which lies on the Euphrates river. A U.S.-backed coalition of Kurdish and Arab militias and rival Turkish-backed Syrian rebel groups have pushed Islamic State from much of its territory in northern Syria, but it remains embedded in the eastern desert and Euphrates basin. Last month the extreme Muslim group managed to recapture the city of Palmyra, southwest of Deir al-Zor, from the government, in an unexpected advance that demonstrated the group’s continuing military threat.

The United Nations’ World Food Program announced it had to temporarily suspend air drops of vital supplies to the city of Deir al-Zor due to heavy fighting there, without any information on when these airdrops could resume. “We have put on hold the air drop operation on Deir al-Zor for security and operational reasons. There is heavy fighting going on, in and around the landing zone, and in the part of the city were the food distributions are taking place. And WFP (World Food Programme) partners on the ground simply cannot expose the lives of the 60 volunteers who are in that open landing zone and would receive the supplies and distribute them. It’s simply too dangerous to do this now,” said Benitta Luescher, WFP Spokeswoman. The World Food Program, whose last drop was on Sunday, has carried out 177 airdrops for 110,000 people in the city since the beginning of the humanitarian operation in April.