Syrian army captures Daesh position, eyes final stronghold

BEIRUT: The Syrian army and its allies seized an oil pumping station in eastern Syria from Daesh, paving the way for an advance toward the terrorists’ last remaining Syrian stronghold, a Hezbollah-run news service reported on Thursday.
The “T2” pumping station is “considered a launch pad for the army and its allies to advance toward the town of Abu Kamal ... which is considered the last remaining stronghold of the Daesh organization in Syria,” the report said.
Abu Kamal is located in Deir Ezzor province at the Syrian border with Iraq, just over the frontier from the Iraqi town of Al-Qaim. Iraq declared on Thursday the start of an offensive to capture Al-Qaim and Rawa, the last patch of Iraqi territory still in Daesh hands.
Daesh self-declared “caliphate” has crumbled this year with the fall of Raqqa and the Iraqi city of Mosul. In Syria, the group is now mostly confined to a shrinking strip of territory in Deir Ezzor province.
The US-led coalition against Daesh is waging a separate campaign against the group in Deir Ezzor, focused on areas to the east of the Euphrates River which bisects the province.
In New York, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura announced a new round of UN-led talks aimed at ending the war would take place in Geneva from Nov. 28. The talks will follow up on a meeting next week in the Kazakh capital of Astana between Russia, Iran and Turkey that is also aimed at achieving a settlement.
De Mistura told the UN Security Council that with the defeat of Daesh in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, the Syrian peace process had reached a “moment of truth.”