Top Syrian Army General Killed in Eastern Syria

Local Editor

One of Syria's most powerful military officers was killed in fighting with al-Qaeda-linked extremists in an oil-rich eastern province largely controlled by the armed groups, Syrian state-run television said Thursday.

The fighting came amid a new push to hold an elusive peace conference for Syria's civil war, with the government proposing the talks start late next month, though there was no sign the opposition would attend.

Maj. Gen. Jameh Jameh was killed in the provincial capital of Deir el-Zour, where he was the head of military intelligence, state-run TV said. He was the most senior military officer to be killed in more than a year.

The report did not say when or how Jameh was killed, only that he died "while he was carrying out his mission in defending Syria and its people."
The so-called Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Jameh was killed by a sniper bullet during clashes with armed groups, including members of al-Qaeda-linked al- Nusra Front.

Jameh's cousin, Haitham Jameh, told Lebanon-based al-Mayadeen TV that the general was killed when a bomb exploded as he led his troops in an operation in Deir al-Zour, site of more than a year of clashes between regime forces and the armed groups.

He was the most powerful Syrian officer to be killed since a July 2012 bomb attack on a Cabinet meeting in Damascus killed four top officials, including the defense minister and his deputy, who was President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law. That attack also wounded the interior minister.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team