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AlMasdarNews reports: Occupied with the battle for Mosul and solidifying the Raqqa fronts against a potential assault from the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Islamic State terror group has been relatively inactive in eastern Homs.

However, this would change when the notorious terrorist group would send a car bomb to target a Syrian Army patrol team on the outskirts of Qaryatayn, an ancient Assyrian desert town southwest of Palmyra, only to be prematurely destroyed before reaching the army checkpoint foiling a potential assault on the town which ISIS lost shortly after their symbolic defeat in Palmyra.

In a separate development, the Syrian Army destroyed four technical vehicles in the vicinity of the Mahr Oil Field. This area in northern Palmyra, often dubbed the Uqayribat bastion, contains a noteworthy ISIS presence that endangers many of the government-held supply routes that run through Syria. Notably, it makes any movement towards Raqqa -the self proclaimed caliphate’s capital, many times harder as witnessed by the failed early summer offensive on the Euphrates city from the direction of Ithriya.

Nevertheless, the eastern fronts of Palmyra had seen no rest as the SAA pushed two kilometers east of the Silos in order to widen the buffer zone around the city’s outskirts where the extremist group maintains dangerous proximity. Russian airstrikes continue to target terrorist movements spanning the Syrian desert as ISIS continues to reportedly shift its assets from its waning Iraqi territory into Syria where it still enjoys some leeway.

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