Russian trooper killed in Syria’s Homs

A Russian soldier has succumbed to his injuries two days after he came under fire from Takfiri terrorists in the Syria’s central Homs province, Russian military officials say.

The trooper, identified as Anton Yerygin, “received serious wounds” and was immediately taken to a hospital where Russian doctors tried their best to save his life, the TASS news agency quoted an unnamed Russian military official at the Hmeimim air base in the Syrian province of Latakia as saying on Wednesday.

The official further said that the soldier would be decorated with a state posthumous medal, without mentioning the exact location of the assault and the date of his death.

Russia launched an air campaign against the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group and other terror groups in Syria last September upon a request from the Damascus government and managed to deal heavy blows to Takfiri terrorists wreaking havoc in the country.

However, on March 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial military pull-out from Syria. Putin’s order came hours after the resumption of peace talks over the crisis in the country. But some forces remain at the Hmeimim airbase and at the Tartus naval base to help maintain and monitor the ceasefire.

Syrian soldiers executed

A video posted on the internet on Wednesday purportedly shows that terrorists from the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front first beat two Syrian soldiers, captured near Aleppo several days earlier, and then shot them dead.

Al-Nusrah front, along with Daesh, has conducted numerous atrocities against Syrian troops and civilians in areas under their control. They are notorious for the summary execution of the people they capture after brutally torturing them.

New terror assault on Aleppo

Meanwhile, two people lost their lives in Seif el-Dowleh district in Syria’s northern Aleppo province when militants launched a mortar attack despite a ceasefire in place between the warring sides in the province.

Many people have been killed in the embattled city in the past weeks as the government forces and militants pounded each other’s positions with artillery and mortar shells. Guns, however, have gone largely silent in the area with the temporary truce in place.

The truce is still officially in place in many parts of Syria despite the surging violence in the flashpoint city of  Aleppo.

Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, has been divided between government forces in the west and militants in the east since 2012, a year after the conflict broke out in the country.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. According to estimations by the United Nations' special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has also displaced over half of the Arab country's pre-war population of about 23 million.

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