Iran has sent 15,000 fighters to Syria to reverse recent battlefield setbacks for Syrian government troops and wants to achieve results by the end of the month, a Lebanese political source has told The Daily Star.
Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's elite Quds force, was in Latakia this week to shore up preparations for the campaign, the source said.
Regime forces also withdrew from the central town of Palmyra last month after a short campaign by ISIS jihadis.
A U.S. official said that more than 10,000 ISIS fighters have been killed by airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in nine months, offering a first body count for a campaign that has yet to halt their advance.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based activist group monitoring the conflict, said ISIS used five booby-trapped vehicles to attack government forces 2 kms south of the city.
In northern Syria at least 37 people, including 10 children, were killed in government barrel bomb attacks, the Observatory said.
In Idlib province, eight members of one family were killed in a barrel bomb attack in the town of Kafr Sijna.
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