US evac Daesh
© Yeni ŞafakUS evacuates Daesh from Syria.
The Saturday evacuation is the latest in a series of airlifts coming amid the Syrian Army's ongoing offensive on jihadists who still control small pockets of Deir ez-Zor, much of them empty desert.

A number of wounded Daesh terrorists militants have been evacuated by US helicopters from Syria's eastern Deir ez-Zor province, local sources said, as quoted by the Syrian news website Arabi Today.

On Saturday night, the militants were reportedly relocated from the town of al-Shaafah located near the Iraqi border to an unknown location. It is not the first time that US military aircraft have been spotted transferring Daesh terrorists from embattled regions.

In late September, Syria's SANA news agency reported that the US-led coalition performed "an air landing operation" on the outskirts of al-Marashida in order to airlift terrorist leaders to an unknown destination.

In April, SANA said that US military helicopters reportedly evacuated at least three Daesh commanders of Iraqi origin along with their family members from Tal al-Shayer region 20 kilometers southeast of the Syrian city of al-Shadadi in Hasakah province.

In December 2017, SANA revealed that a number of Daesh militants had been evacuated from several locations across Deir ez-Zor province to the al-Hasakah region, under the control of US forces.

Deir ez-Zor had been under siege by Daesh militants since 2014 before the area was cleared in the fall of 2017 by government forces. The province was also targeted by a Daesh offensive from May to June this year.

The United States and a number of its allies launched their campaign against Daesh in Syria in 2014, in what was approved neither by the UN nor Damascus.