Fighting and Russian air strikes in the central desert province of Homs since late Thursday have taken the lives of 18 pro-government fighters and 26 extremists Daesh extremists have retained a roving presence in Syria’s vast Badia desert, despite losing their last shred of territory last year BEIRUT: Clashes between Russia-backed Syrian regime forces and the Daesh group have killed more than 40 fighters on the two sides in just 48 hours, a Britain-based war monitor said Saturday. Fighting and Russian air strikes in the central desert province of Homs since late Thursday have taken the lives of 18 pro-government fighters and 26 extremists, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. “The fighting started in the night of Thursday to Friday with an extremist assault on regime positions” near the town of Al-Sukhna, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said. Daesh extremists have retained a roving presence in Syria’s vast Badia desert, despite losing their last shred of territory last year. They regularly carry out attacks there. Daesh declared a cross-border “caliphate” in large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, but several military campaigns against it chipped away at that proto-state and eventually led to its territorial demise. Syria’s war has killed more than 380,000 people since it started in 2011 with the repression of anti-government protests, before evolving into a complex conflict involving world powers and extremists.