A military source close to the government said the army was working to secure the Kweires air base in Aleppo Province, where soldiers and officers have been under attack since 2013.
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Last week, Head of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Col. Gen. Andrey Kartapolov stated that Russia carried out several airstrikes on IS positions with coordinates provided by the moderate factions of the Syrian opposition.
Areas around Aleppo have seen weeks of heavy fighting after Syrian troops, backed by Lebanese and Iranian fighters, launched an offensive to retake surrounding territory from rebels and jihadist fighters.
Kweyris has been besieged by Isis since spring 2014, but was surrounded by rebel groups before that.
Tuesday’s push is a major victory for the government against IS, which controls almost half of Syria.
ISIS fighters are still present in other areas around the base. The forces held on to the base for two years, apparently knowing that their fate would be death if they were captured.
Last year, IS killed more than 160 Syrian government troops seized at a military base in the northern province of Raqqa.
Meanwhile, at least 22 people were killed and many more wounded by rebel shellfire in the Mediterranean city of Latakia, state media and activists say.
The extremist group’s mass executions of soldiers after overrunning isolated military bases in eastern Syria has provoked anger in the government’s coastal heartland, the stronghold of the Alawite minority to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.
The Syrian conflict, which began with peaceful demonstrations in 2011, has spiralled into a multi-sided civil war that has cost more than 250,000 lives and driven more than 11 million people from their homes, according to United Nations figures.
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Syrian state TV said two shells hit an area near Tishrin University on Tuesday afternoon.
