The Syrian army said its soldiers have surrounded Islamic State elements in Deir e Zor along the eastern border with Iraq [Xinhua]
The Russian military says that the Islamic State in Syria has been nearly routed even as the Syrian Arab Army announces that it has retaken yet more territory from the extremist group.
On Tuesday the Syrian Army’s 4th Mechanized Division said it had liberated east Hama city and destroyed the Islamic State’s largest training facility there.
The Syrian Army is now fighting its way into Deir e Zor in the east along the border with Iraq, backed by Russian fighter jets and bombers.
This follows the liberation of the town of Mayadeen, also in the east, from the Islamic State.
Sergei Rudskoi, chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, says that the Islamic State now controls less than eight per cent of Syrian territory.
Meanwhile, US-backed rebel group the Syrian Democratic Forces, comprised mostly of Kurdish militia, said it had fully liberated the city of Raqqa from Islamic State fighters.
Raqqa had been the self-styled capital of the Islamic State caliphate for the last three years.
The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies
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