<P> On 20 March, 150 civilians were killed in the Al - Badia school massacre by Russian and U.S. air strikes . </P> <P> The Syrian Arab Army entered Dayr Hafir, the last stronghold held by the Islamic State in East Aleppo, on 23 March, and secured it by 23 March . This opened up an opportunity to push south into the Ar - Raqqa governate where the Islamic State's de facto capital resides; however on 23 March, a Syrian Democratic Forces contingent landed on a peninsula west of Raqqa via boats and helicopters, in an effort to cut off the Syrian Arab Army from entering the Islamic State's de facto capital, Raqqa . On 28 March, an agreement was reportedly brokered by Qatar and Iran for the evacuation for four besieged towns in Syria, where around 60,000 people live . The deal involved evacuating the residents of al - Fu'ah and Kafriya, two towns in the Idlib Governorate besieged by rebel forces, in exchange for the evacuation of residents and rebels in Zabadani and Madaya, two towns under siege by government forces in the Rif Dimashq Governorate . </P> <P> From April 2017, the United States took on a more confrontational strategy in Syria . After the chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun, which American officials blamed on the Syrian government, warships of the Us Navy launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at the Syrian government's Shayrat Air Base which was said the be the source of the chemical attack . The American attack, taking place on the 7th of April, was the first officially announced deliberate attack on Syrian government forces . Due to being launched without authorisation from United States Congress or the United Nations Security Council, the strike triggered an emergency UNSC meeting, initially requested by Bolivia and supported by Russia . A spokesman of Vladimir Putin stated that that Russian President viewed the U.S. attack as "an act of aggression against a sovereign country violating the norms of international law, and under a trumped - up pretext at that". This view was shared by Deborah Pearlstein, who has suggested that US military strikes against Syrian government forces violate the UN Charter, a cornerstone of international law which has been ratified by the US and is thus binding on the US . In response, the U.S representative at the UNSC emergency meeting said that "the moral stain of the Assad regime could no longer go unanswered ." American forces would strike the Syrian military again on the 18th of May, when a Syrian army convoy advancing in the vicinity of the border town of al - Tanf, which hosted a US - controlled airbase used for training of anti-government forces, came under attack by US fighter jets . Nevertheless, the Syrian government's desert offensive continued and on 9 June government forces secured a part of Syrian--Iraqi border for the first time since 2015 . </P> <P> Meanwhile, intense fighting between government forces and rebel groups that began north of Hama on 21 March, continued . By the 29th of March, the SAA, which had halted the rebel offensive at the outskirts of Hama, began a counterstroke, and on the 16th of April, had reversed all rebel gains . They proceeded to launch a smaller assault of their own, and by the end of April had captured the towns of Halfaya and Taybat al - Imam . </P>

What is the purpose of the syrian civil war