The Free Syrian Army continues to hold off ground attacks by the Assad regime on eastern Damascus as FSA fighters shot down an Assad regime warplane and captured its pilot alive in rural Sweida on Tuesday.
Last week, regime forces launched a large-scale offensive on the rebel-held town of Ayn Tarma in eastern Ghouta and the nearby district of Jobar in eastern Damascus.
According to figures published by Failaq Alrahman, an FSA-affiliated rebel group operating in eastern Ghouta, regime forces have lost at least 50 militants who were killed in ambushes set up by the rebel group in Jobar and Ayn Tarma over the past week. The regime casualties also included more than 80 militants who were injured in the ongoing clashes against rebel fighters. Failaq Alrahman also said it had destroyed four tanks, two bulldozers, and a 23-mm gun belonging to regime forces.
Meanwhile, the Jaish Ossoud Alsharqiya FSA group announced it had shot down a regime MiG-23 jet fighter and captured its wounded pilot in eastern rural Suweida on Tuesday.
Saad al-Hajj, spokesman for the FSA group, which is part of the FSA’s “The Land is Ours” operations room, said that the warplane had taken off from Khalkhala airbase in Swaida province and fell down in the Wadi Mahmoud valley.
Fares al-Munjed, communications head of the Ahmad al-Abdo Forces FSA group, said that the downed jet fighter was targeting fighters of the group during clashes with regime forces as well as the outskirts of the Ruwaished and Rukban refugee camps near the Jordanian border. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department + Agencies)
