Syria's army clashed with Islamic State fighters outside a government-controlled military airport on Friday, a monitoring group said, as the al Qaeda splinter group seeks to strengthen its grip on the east of the country. Deir al-Zor airport is one of the last key strategic locations in the province out of the control of Islamic State, which has also seized swathes of territory across the border in northern and western Iraq. The Syrian army responded by bombing areas around the airport, which supplies its forces in the east of the country, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The fighting was just a few hundred meters from the airport, the Observatory's director Rami Abdurrahman said, adding that it would be tough for Islamic State to overcome government forces there.
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July 18th, 2014
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