Syria army keeps militants at bay near capital

Syrian forces continue to fight terrorists on several fronts across the country.

On Monday, Syrian forces recaptured Sheikh Ahmad Village in the northern province of Aleppo from Takfiri Daesh militants.

Syrian troops also attacked the positions of al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, al-Nusra Front, in the city of Busra al-Sham near Dara’a, destroying their hideouts. They also targeted militant positions in the town of Atman, also near Dara’a, and killed a number of them.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy for four and a half years. More than 250,000 have lost their lives and millions displaced as a result of the crisis in the Arab country. The foreign-sponsored militancy has displaced 7.6 million Syrians.

US-led air raids ‘criminal’

Syria has denounced as “criminal aggression” the bombing of the Arab country’s infrastructure by the so-called anti-Daesh coalition led by the US.

In letters to the United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the UN Security Council on Monday, Syria’s Foreign Ministry highlighted the destructive effects of US-led airstrikes targeting the country’s infrastructural facilities such as power plants, oil fields and factories.

US bombardments of industrial areas are aimed at destroying Syria’s economy, the letters said.

The US and some of its allies have been carrying out air raids against what they say are Daesh positions in Iraq since August 2014. Since last September, some members of the US-led coalition have also been pounding purported Daesh positions inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

However, the air raids have so far failed to dislodge the terror groups that control swathes of land in both neighboring states.