IS attack kills 135 in eastern Syria: Monitor

At least 135 Syrian soldiers, pro-government fighters and civilians were killed on Saturday in a multi-front attack by the Islamic State (IS) group on the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, a monitor said.

The fighting came as Syrian government forces battled IS in the northern province of Aleppo, repelling an assault and killing at least 16 fighters from the group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said IS had advanced into the northern tip of Deir Ezzor city, in eastern Syria, and captured the suburb of Al-Baghaliyeh.

At least 60 government forces were killed in Al-Baghaliyeh alone, most of them execution-style, the Britain-based monitor said.

The advance puts IS in control of about 60 percent of the city, with the government forces holding the rest, it said.

Syrian state news agency SANA said government troops had repelled an IS attack on the area around Al-Baghaliyeh and inflicted “heavy losses" on the group.

Deir Ezzor is the capital of the province of the same name, an oil-rich region that borders Iraq and is mostly held by IS.

General Sergei Rudskoi, a senior Russian General Staff official, had told reporters on Friday that his country was supplying humanitarian assistance to Deir Ezzor after months of intensive bombing in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

Supply routes to the city of 100,000 were cut off by IS when it seized Palmyra in May 2015, with the only supplies coming in by helicopter. 

Rudskoi said Syria's Il-76 military transport planes had airdropped 22 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Deir Ezzor.

Syrian government forces clung onto portions of the provincial capital and the adjacent military airport despite repeated IS attacks.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said heavy fighting was continuing Saturday afternoon after the IS assault, which began with a suicide car bomb blast.

IS claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement saying its members carried out several suicide bombings against regime forces and that the group was in control of Al-Baghaliyeh and other areas of Deir Ezzor.

The Observatory said Russian aircraft were carrying out air strikes in support of government forces as they sought to repel IS.

Syrian government forces were also locked in fierce clashes with IS in Aleppo province, with at least 16 IS fighters killed after a failed attack on a government position near the town of Al-Bab, the monitor said.

State television also reported that Syrian forces had repelled an assault.

The Observatory said heavy fighting was ongoing in the area Saturday, with Russian planes carrying out strikes in the Aleppo region between the government-held Kweyris air base and Al-Bab.

Syrian government forces have advanced towards the town, an IS bastion, in recent days, and are now within 10 kilometres of it, according to the Observatory.

That is the closest government forces have come to Al-Bab since 2012.

Government forces advance

The Britain-based monitor also said government forces had taken a string of villages nearby.

Located some 30km south of the Turkish border, Al-Bab fell into rebel hands in July 2012 and IS captured it in late 2013.

The fighting in Al-Bab is just one of up to seven fronts on which government forces are seeking to advance in Aleppo province, capitalising on a Russian air campaign that began on 30 September.

The various battles are intended in part to cut Syrian rebel supply lines into Aleppo city, the provincial capital and Syria's second city.

Aleppo itself is divided and government forces are now trying to encircle the opposition-held east.

In addition to cutting rebel access to eastern Aleppo city, Syrian troops are hoping to sever areas controlled by IS in the province from its territory in neighbouring Raqqa, Abdel Rahman said.

IS struggling to recruit

Raqqa, the self-declared capital of IS, has come under frequent air strikes by the US-led coalition, the Syrian air force and Russian planes.

On Saturday at least 16 people, including civilians, were killed in air strikes and 30 others were wounded in Raqqa, said Abdel Rahman.

He said eight strikes hit the city and its surroundings but did not specify who carried them out.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, in comments reported Saturday, said about 600 Britons have been stopped from going to Syria to join IS and other groups.

Hammond said these interceptions as well as air strikes were placing extra strain on IS in its Raqqa headquarters. 

"There is evidence (IS) is finding it difficult to recruit to the brigades in Raqqa because of the high attrition rate of foreign fighters," he said, according to The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph newspapers.