Reports | 25 05 2020
While the organization ISIS was losing several fronts in eastern Aleppo, and withdrawing from areas of Palmyra and Homs, it was continuing in its attempts to control the entire city of Deir ez-Zor, where recently it tightened its grip on the neighborhood "Albugyliah", to pave the way towards "Qosor and Jura" neighborhoods, which still under the control of the Syrian regime.
Prisoners after the penetration
After ISIS first attack on the Albugyliah in Deir ez-Zor, on the 16th of January 2016, they arrested more than fifty families and took them to a military outpost, located near Ayyash area north Albugyliah.
“ISIS soldiers investigated with all the families, where they arrested a number of people who were wanted, and released the rest of the families after several hours of reservation" says Ali, one of Deir al-Zour countrysides’ residents.
According to Ali, the released families went to the countryside western Deir ez-Zor, which is under the control of ISIS. while hundreds of families were displaced from the suburb of Albugyliah to the neighborhoods “Jura” and “Qusor” which are trapped by ISIS, and under the control of the Syrian regime.
The organization is still so far detaining about 80 unaccounted people, aged between 15 and 60 years, while they released about 15 people recently, because they were not convicted of something according to the investigations, but what is the fate of the detainees? Remarks source in the city said: “the arrest is a routine procedure, and the detainees will subject to a legitimacy sessions."
Strategic importance of Albugyliah
The direct goal of attacking Albugyliah seems clear, what about the indirect goals? According to the activists of the of Deir al-Zour, ISIS aspires to reach sensitive areas belong to the Syrian regime, like “Ayyash” and ammunition depots near it, in addition to the “Thunderbolt camp” for the equipment and weapons there.
Albugyliah neighborhood is an area of about 6 square kilometers, was inhabited by more than 3,500 people, and the after ISIS control on it, no one is left there, due to the battles between ISIS and the forces of the Syrian regime.
ISIS penetration and the regime’s reaction
On the 16th of January, a military group affiliated with ISIS consists of 40-strong soldiers sneaked in small boats across the river Euphrates, and they were able to target houses inhabited by soldiers belonging to the Syrian regime, northeast Albugyliah. And they entered it using the explosives, and tried to control the Furat al-Sham Hotel, which is the Syrian regime headquarters.
Since that time a lot of clashes happened between the regime forces and ISIS militants, and the regime forces could regained the control on several areas in the south after the military aviation bombings, while ISIS kept most of the parts under the control, including Albugyliah.
The pressure on the population
Recently the Syrian regime follows a new way to put pressure on the people of Deir al-Zour, to discriminate them into the battles. According to residents there, the regime’s soldiers arrested a number of high school students in the neighborhoods “Jura” and “Qusor”, forcing them to dig trenches in the battle fronts in the city, and then released them.
Arrests were randomly from the streets, and one of the residents confirms that during the past months, the people of the two besieged neighborhoods were concerned of sending their children to schools. As some argue, that the Syrian regime deliberated to put pressure on the people, who forbid their children from attending the service in the army, in order to step back from this.
During these events, the Syrian regime opened Battle of Palmyra and controlled it; so many families of Palmyra resorted to Deir ez-Zor. And until this moment, the sources from the city confirm the arrival of about 300 families to Deir al-Zour, specifically to the areas controlled by ISIS, whose fate is unknown until this moment.