MOSCOW - Russia's Kremlin-backed international broadcaster RT said a correspondent from its Arabic-language channel was killed Sunday by shelling from the Islamic State group in Syria's Homs province. "RT mourns the loss of its correspondent Khaled al-Khatib, who was killed on Sunday July 30 as he was covering the Syrian army's operation against the terrorist group IS around Sukhna in the eastern parts of Homs province," the channel wrote in an online announcement in Arabic. "Our correspondent in central Syria sustained a fatal wound when a shell fired by IS terrorists hit a Syrian army position while he was on a field assignment riddled with danger in al-Baghaliya in rural Homs province."

Syrian government troops entered Sukhna, the last IS stronghold in the country's Homs province, on Friday after jihadists began withdrawing, a monitor said. The town, some 70 kilometres (45 miles) northeast of the famed ancient city of Palmyra, is the last town on the road to the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, where a government garrison has held out under IS siege since early 2015. Since May, Syria's army has been conducting a broad military campaign with Russian support to recapture the vast desert that separates the capital Damascus from Deir Ezzor and other towns along the Euphrates Valley.