The governor of the Daesh-held province of Dayr al-Zawr has said that the Syrian army will reach the city within the next 48 hours.

“The heroes of the army will arrive at Dayr al-Zawr in 24-48 hours at the most," said Mohammed Ibrahim Samra on Sunday.

According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the army has reached the border of the besieged garrison’s camp on the western edge of the city.

It added that intense fighting has broken out between the Daesh terrorists and the newly-arrived forces who are trying to link up with their besieged allies in the eastern Syrian city, which has been held by the terrorists since 2014.

According to Syrian military sources, a large number of terrorists have been killed during the operations which began earlier in the day.

“We carried out at dawn a successful raid against one of Daesh terrorists’ barricades in the direction of the Water Resources area with several bombs when we approached the area, killing all the terrorists at the site,” said one of the troops engaged in the operations.  

Earlier in the day, a high-ranking American military commander said the US-backed militia from the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will take part in the operation to retake the troubled eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr from the extremists.

In the past few months, Daesh has suffered multiple defeats across Syria, notably in the city of Raqqah, its de facto capital in the Arab country. It has also been heavily battered in neighboring Iraq, particularly by losing its main Iraqi base of Mosul in July.