Islamic State (ISIS) fighters attacked Syrian troops loyal to the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The intense fighting left nearly 50 dead. 

The fighting took place, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), around the villages of Badiya Al-Sukhnah and Badiya Al-Sham in Syria’s central province of Homs. ISIS fighters tried to enter the two villages and in the fighting killed 27 government troops. 

But then the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), National Defense Forces (NDF), and Liwaa Al-Quds (Jerusalem Brigade), a  Palestinian militia that was trained by Russian forces, were able to fight back.  

It was then that Russian airstrikes turned the tide. And after 22 ISIS fighters were killed in the airstrikes, the terrorists were forced to retreat back into the desert. Troops loyal to the Syrian government had taken the town from ISIS back in 2017 and forced them to retreat deep into the vast Badia desert. 

SOHR chief Rami Abdel Rahman said, “Russian aviation intervened to stop the jihadists from advancing and retaking the town.” 

But he added that ISIS fighters did manage to break through and entered parts of Al-Sukhna in the evening, taking control of some neighborhoods.

ISIS had taken advantage of the Syrian Civil War which began in 2011 after Assad put down protests brutally. The Islamic State moved in, cut out vast swaths of Syria and Iraq in 2014, and established what it called a caliphate. The U.S. entered the fray and began training, equipping, and advising the Syrian Kurdish militias. 

The presence of 2,000 uninvited Ameican troops irked the Syrians, Russians, and Iranians to no end. But after over 11,000 airstrikes that decimated the ISIS in their front, Daesh (as ISIS is called by the Kurds) was booted out of eastern Syria.

Turkey got involved in the fighting to try and push the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces away from its borders. Turkey considers the Kurds, who the U.S. had advised and led, to be terrorists.

Currently, over three-and-a-half million Syrian refugees who fled the fighting, are flooding Turkish refugee camps. Nearly a million more are holed up in makeshift camps along the border Turko-Syrian border.  

And one can’t forget the Israelis. They are livid that Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy is trying to set up bases on their border along the Golan Heights. They have frequently conducted airstrikes on Syrian territory where Iranians and their proxies are based.

On Thursday, it was reported in the media that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had offered Syria $3 billion to break the fragile ceasefire in Idlib. The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi attempted to convince Syria to break the ceasefire as part of a plot to tie Turkey down in the area and keep her from committing more assets in Libya. Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed had tried to block the ceasefire deal back in early March and then repeatedly tried to influence Assad to relaunch his military offensive in Idlib. 

The Syrian civil war has become a total mess. Since it began hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced.