Russia says it told US where in Syria they could not bomb 2:27

THE Syrian army is reporting new enemy aggression, with missiles targeting missile bases in the north of the country. Syrian state media reported that authorities were work to “determine the cause of the explosions.”

“A new attack with missiles targeted military positions in the provinces of Hama and Aleppo,” respectively in the centre and north of the country, the Assad-government official news agency SANA reported, citing a military source. The Observatory could not immediately say whether there were any casualties, nor who was responsible for the missile strikes. The news comes less than two weeks after a similar report of airstrikes on government military installations in the central Homs region and the suburbs of Damascus. But the military later said a false alarm had set off air defense systems. Earlier this month, seven Iranian military personnel were killed in an airstrike on Syria’s T4 air base, also in Homs. He added that Israel “will prevent Iran from establishing a forward base in Syria at any cost.”

The report came amid heightened tensions in Syria after Damascus and its ally Iran accused Israel on April 9 of conducting deadly strikes against a military base in the centre of the country. Israel did not confirm or deny it. In the April 9 attack, at least 14 soldiers, including seven Iranians, were killed in the strike on a military base in central Homs

Syrian government forces at the weekend briefly captured four villages east of the Euphrates River in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour after rare clashes with US-backed Kurdish-led fighters before losing the area in a counter-offensive by the Kurdish-led force. The Russian-backed Syrian army has rarely clashed with SDF forces in its campaign against Islamic State and had kept away from their areas east of the Euphrates, focusing on regaining territory from the militants west of the river. The Islamic State had declared its caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq. Crossings into the east bank of the Euphrates in eastern Syria by government forces have been rare. State news agency SANA said the villages were held by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, adding that they are close to the provincial capital, also called Deir el-Zour. SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel said in a statement earlier yesterday that the Syrian army attack coincided with “our forces’ preparations to complete the Island Storm campaign” to liberate the remaining areas east of the river from Islamic State.
The Syrian Army, along with what is believed to be Iranian-backed militias, took control villages east of the Euphrates river near the city of Deir ez-Zor that were under the control by Kurdish-led forces in a rare clash with the Syrian Democratic Forces. The territory was later recaptured by U.S.-backed forces in a counter-attack spearheaded by the YPG with help from U.S.-led coalition jets that took off from American bases in northern Syria. The U.S. military says in a statement that the "coalition used established deconfliction channels to de-escalate the situation".