US-led coalition attempted an airstrike at 5 Pm on the night of Saturday 17/09/2016, hit sites for regime forces on “Tharda” mountain and the area around the military airport with four raids at least, the strategic location and the reason considered as it since its overviews the airport of Deir Ezzor as a last defence line for the air force base. The air strikes followed by heavy clashes between IS [who tried to take advantage of the situation and advance in the area] and regime forces who were panic and confused which force them to bring more reinforcement toward the inside military airport fronts, while most important military and security leaders from the province were in the clashes. Later, regime warplanes targeted with airstrikes the sites regime advanced in, also targeted “Al-Bghilia” neighbourhood the hits been shared even with the Russian warplanes around 10 pm at night, supporting the regime forces during their attempts to defend IS advancing according to information JFL received. The reporter of JFL added that “ IS achieved progress in the first hours of the battle toward the artillery brigade, kill severals of regime forces while only 5 of IS members fall, but regime soldiers managed to control back most of the sites been taken by IS for couple hours.” During the declare of Russian defence ministry and Syrian regime- linked media about the kill off 62 regime soldier and the injury of another 100, accusing the US-led coalition about the airstrike, the one the coalition admit it happened by mistake later. The reporter also confirmed that “ the statement of the Russian defence ministry was Exaggerated and there were no such numbers as mentioned in those gathering points in , explaining that hot front lines points could handle maximum 25 at each, and that includes the members of Zain Alabdeen militias and Hezbollah.” Other exclusive sources for JFL confirmed that the number of casualties the military hospital received wasn’t that big comparing with the numbers in the statement, however, the hospital is not even capable of receiving such numbers because of the limited numbers of medical teams there too. Which leave the possibility that the leadership of regime was trying to cover his kills in previous battles with this Incident by overstating about the casualties he had because of the coalition airstrikes. The strikes considered as first time happens since the start of US-led coalition their operations in in the area, which didn’t target the first front lines, during continuous attempts from IS to advance and control DeirEzzor while IS retreating from other sites in Syria.
