MESOP actual News Roundup: Tuesday, September 29 – Syrian forces 7km from Islamic State-encircled airbase – Where is Putin ?

WEST KURDISTAN (SYRIA) – Syrian regime forces are within seven kilometers of its last remaining base in the east Aleppo countryside on Tuesday, one which has been tightly encircled by Islamic State forces for nearly two years.

The Syrian military launched a two-pronged ground offensive against IS forces, “attacking from regime-held towns and villages west and southwest of Kweiris air base,” Hussein al-Halaby, a journalist with the Aleppo Media Center, told Syria Direct on Tuesday. The Islamic State surrounded the base in mid-2014.
A succession of rebel brigades have encircled Kweiris airbase since January 2013. Although it no longer holds the same military utility it once did as a launchpad for regime airstrikes against Aleppo city, Damascus is feeling popular pressure to halt the fall of airbases across Syria following Jabhat a-Nusra’s capture of Abu Duhur airbase in Idlib in early September. www.mesop.de