Tabnak – As anti-terrorist operations are still ongoing in different parts of Iraq and Syria, ISIS is losing more and more ground, marking a serious beginning for the end of the group’s reign. However, there are concerns that is some important territories they may just be replaced by other radical groups.
According to a Russian governmental report, less than five percent of the Syrian territory remains under the grip of ISIS terrorists as government forces, backed by Russian air power, press ahead with an offensive to drive the terrorist outfit out of its main stronghold in eastern Syria.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a conference in the Philippines on Monday that terrorists used to control more than 70 percent of Syria before the Russian military launched an aerial campaign in support of Syrian counterterrorism operations in September 2015.
Russian warplanes have destroyed more than 900 training camps and a multitude of heavy weaponry that belonged to the terrorists.
However, a Syrian minister says no land is considered liberated in the country unless national army forces regain control of it and raise the Syrian flag atop its buildings.
"We do not consider any city liberated until the Syrian Arab army enters it and lifts the Syrian flag over it. This applies to any point of the Syrian map,” Information Minister Mohammad Ramez Tardjaman told Russia’s Sputnik news agency in an interview published on Monday.
Earlier this month, the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed coalition of mainly Kurdish militants, captured the city of Raqqa from the ISIS terror group following a military operation, which was launched in July without the central government’s approval.
Meanwhile, in another development regarding the Syrian crisis, the Syrian army has advanced deeper into the southern outskirts of the eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr, which is partially held by ISIS terrorists, pushing the terrorist outfit further toward total defeat in the oil-rich province, a monitoring group reports.
According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Monday, ISIS terrorists are increasingly losing ground across the province to advancing Syrian troops and the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The developments came a day after Syrian ground forces, backed by pro-government fighters, managed to liberate the strategic town of Khasham, located in the northeastern countryside of Dayr al-Zawr city, from the grips of ISIS.
ISIS overran large parts of Dayr al-Zawr Province, including its many oil fields, in mid-2014 as it seized swathes of land in Syria and neighboring Iraq.
By early 2015, the terrorists were in control of some parts of Dayr al-Zawr and besieged the remaining parts, which were under government control. It is estimated that 100,000 people remain in the government-held parts of the city.
