Islamic State militants kill and capture hundreds of regime soldiers in Syria

Sources close to the organisation of the Islamic State in Syria told Anadolu news agency’s correspondent on Wednesday that the organisation killed about 200 soldiers from the Syrian regime’s army and captured nearly 250 others, including several officers, in the agricultural lands in the Jarawi area near the Tabaqqa military air base, which the organisation recently captured.

The sources told Anadolu that the organisation’s militants surrounded the soldiers who had fled from the air base into the agricultural fields to hide there, noting that the regime forces launched a military operation to rescue them but failed.

The sources did not elaborate on the size of the losses amongst the regime’s forces, while the Syrian authorities have not issued any official statement about the incident.

The Islamic State seized control of the Al-Tabaqqa military air base earlier this week. The airbase had been used by the regime’s warplanes to bomb various regions and provinces in eastern Syria.

The organisation fully controls the Raqqa province, as well as all the aircrafts and weapons stored at the airbase except those which the regime had moved earlier, according to opposition factions’ estimates.

Meanwhile, the publishing director of the Shahbaa press agency, Mamoun Abu Omar in Aleppo, said the Islamic Front killed 43 Islamic State elements, including two Americans, in a military operation launched in cooperation with other armed opposition groups in Syria.

Abu Omar pointed out that one of the Americans who was killed was born in 1981 in the state of Illinois and named Douglas McCain, noting that the armed opponents were able to stop the advancement of the Islamic State in the areas north of Aleppo.