The Latest: Stray fire from Syria wounds Israeli civilian
The Latest on developments in Syria whether government forces have liberated the eastern city of Deir el-Zour from the Islamic State group (all times local):
1:10 p.m.
Israel's military says a civilian was shot and wounded from stray fire from across the border amid "intense fighting" in neighboring Syria.
It says the Israeli civilian was lightly hurt on Friday from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
Israel has mostly stayed out of Syria's civil war that's raging near its northern frontier.But it has carried out a number of strikes in response to spillover fire.
It is also believed to have carried out airstrikes on suspected weapons convoys from Syria to its archenemy Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite militant group which has members fighting alongside Syrian government forces.
Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and the two countries remain enemies.
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12:40 p.m.
An Iraqi officer says troops battling the Islamic State group in Iraq's far west have reached the border with Syria as they fight IS near the militants near the border town of Qaim.
Maj. Bassam Fawaz with the federal police says that Iraqi forces reached the border on Friday morning as they continue to close in on the last remaining pocket of militant-held territory in Iraq's Anbar province.
The joint operations command says Iraqi forces began pushing into the western neighborhoods of Qaim and that Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi pledged the battle will be finished within days.
Qaim, located about 320 kilometers, or 200 miles, west of Baghdad lies along a border crossing with Syria in the Euphrates River Valley. It has been used by IS to ferry fighters and supplies between the two countries when the militants' territorial hold included nearly a third of both Iraqi and Syrian territory.
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11:45 a.m.
Syria's state-run news agency says at least six people were killed and 21 were wounded in a suicide bombing that hit a government-held town in the southern province of Quneitra.
SANA says Friday's bombing targeted the outskirts of the town of Hadar in the northern countryside of Quneitra, near the Israel-occupied Golan Heights. It gave no further details.
Opposition activists reported that a suicide car bomb targeted a position of Syrian soldiers in that area amid clashes between government forces and rebels there.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at seven and said 23 people were wounded. It also reported heavy clashes between the two sides in the area.
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10 a.m.
Syrian state media say the army has liberated the eastern city of Deir el-Zour from the Islamic State group.
Friday's report says the military is now in full control of the long contested city.
Syrian government forces and their pro-government allies first broke the militant group's siege of their part of the city in September and have been advancing against IS positions since then.
Deir el-Zour had been divided into a government-held and an IS-held part for nearly three years.
The development is the latest significant defeat for IS as the militant group sees its self-proclaimed "caliphate" crumble and lose almost all urban strongholds.
The Syrian army and Kurdish-led forces backed by the U.S. are now racing to take the rest of the oil-rich eastern province.
- Star
