Syrian forces advance on IS-held air base

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BEIRUT (AP) -- Syrian government forces advanced to within six miles (10 kilometers) of the Islamic State-occupied Tabqa air base in the northern part of the country on Sunday, part of a push to try to unseat the extremist group from its de facto capital, Raqqa.

Government forces recaptured the nearby Thawra oil field from IS militants, according to a Syrian journalist Eyad al-Hosain, who is embedded with the army. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the army advanced to within seven kilometers (four miles) of Tabqa.

The Tabqa base, 45 kilometers (28 miles) from Raqqa, holds strategic and symbolic value in the government campaign on the IS capital. It was the last position held by government forces in the Raqqa province before IS militants overran it in August 2014, killing scores of detained soldiers in a massacre they documented on video. Raqqa itself became the militants' first captive city.

A Syrian opposition coalition, meanwhile, called on Turkey to investigate the deaths of at least eight Syrian refugees, including four children, who were allegedly shot dead by border guards Saturday night while trying to cross the frontier.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_SYRIA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-06-19-11-49-28

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1. Syrian army advances into IS de facto capital

DAMASCUS, June 19 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian army continued its advance into the northern province of Al-Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State (IS), a military source told Xinhua.

On Sunday, government forces captured the Al-Thawra oilfield and stormed into housing units in western Al-Raqqa after battling IS militants, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Military forces are now merely 10 km from the Al-Tabaqa airbase, located in a town of the same name west of Al-Raqqa, the source added.

On June 4, the Syrian army entered Al-Raqqa's administrative borders, days after unleashing a widescale offensive against the route between the town of Athriya in the central province of Hama, and the Al-Tabaqa town in Al-Raqqa countryside.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-06/19/c_135449225.htm

[Agnosticsherbet]

2. Good.