A quick and successful offensive by Kurdish fighters and allied rebels in a northern Syrian town has boosted a U.S.-backed effort to choke off Islamic State’s supply routes and offered Continue Reading
Photo An Islamic State flag flying on Monday in Tal Abyad, a Syrian town on the Turkish border. The town represents a strategic supply route for Islamic State militants. Credit Umit Bektas/Reuters ISTANBUL — A coalition of Kurdish militias and Arab rebels stormed into a strategic Syrian town on the Turkey border on Monday, seizing most of it from Islamic State fighters who had long used the area to smuggle supplies and fighters into their self-declared caliphate, according to Kurdish militia leaders and activists. The complete loss of the town, Tal Abyad, would deal a major blow to the jihadists by cutting the primary lifeline to the Syrian city of Raqqa, which the Islamic State has ruled for more than a year and has tried to turn into a model of strict Islamic governance. The advance was a boost to opposition fighters who have watched in dismay as the […]
A year ago, U.S. President Barack Obama tried to justify why his country dealt with the Iraqi and Syrian crises differently after sending drones, consultants and arms to Iraq and Continue Reading
The majority of Deraa province is controlled by opposition fighters [Getty] An umbrella group of opposition fighters have seized the largest army base in the southern province of Deraa – the birthplace of Syria’s four-year uprising – after 24 hours of fighting, a rebel spokesman and monitoring group have said. Essam al-Rayes, a spokesman for the Southern Front rebel alliance operating in the province, told the AFP news agency on Tuesday that the "fully liberated" base "was one of the main lines of defence for regime forces". "It was a nightmare, because they used it to shell all the areas to the east of the province," he added. He said at least 2,000 rebel forces overran the base, which lies near a major highway running from Damascus to Syria’s southern border with Jordan, in a "short and quick" assault. Diaa al-Hariri, a spokesman for Faylaq al-Awwal, one of the […]
AMMAN The Syrian army said on Sunday it had repulsed a major offensive by Islamic State militants in the northeastern city of Hasaka and driven out fighters who had taken over key installations on the southern edge of the city. The northeastern corner of Syria is strategically important because it links areas controlled by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Syrian Kurds have also sought to expand their territorial control over a region stretching from Kobani to Qamishili they see as part of a future Kurdish state. The militants, approaching from their stronghold the city of Shadadi, south of Hasaka city, made lighting advances this week after conducting around a dozen suicide attacks using explosives-laden trucks at army checkpoints in the city. But Syrian state television, quoting an army source, said in a newsflash they had taken back an electricity station, a juvenile prison and two villages almost two […]
PERTH Islamic State militants have used chlorine as a weapon and are recruiting highly trained technicians in a serious bid to develop chemical weapons, Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop warned. In a speech to an international forum of nations that works to fight the spread of such weapons, Bishop said the rise of militant groups such as ISIS, also known as Daish, posed “one of the gravest security threats we face today.” “Apart from some crude and small scale endeavors, the conventional wisdom has been that the terrorist intention to acquire and weaponize chemical agents has been largely aspirational,” Bishop told a meeting of the Australia Group in Perth. The speech on Friday was posted online. “The use of chlorine by Daish, and its recruitment of highly technically trained professionals, including from the West, have revealed far more serious efforts in chemical weapons development,” she said. “Daish is likely […]
ISTANBUL — Building on recent gains in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State militants are marching across northern Syria toward Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, helped along, their opponents say, by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad . In the countryside northeast of Aleppo on Tuesday, Islamic State fighters fought rival Syrian insurgents amid fears that the Islamic State was positioning itself to make Aleppo its next big prize. Syrian opposition leaders accused the Syrian government of essentially collaborating with the Islamic State, leaving the militants unmolested as they pressed a surprise offensive against other insurgent groups — even though the government and the Islamic State are nominal enemies — and instead striking the rival insurgents. At the same time, the rebels complained that the United States has refrained from contributing air support to help them fend off simultaneous attacks by the government and the Islamic State. The United States has […]
Photo Shiite militiamen clashed with members of the Islamic State in Fallujah, Iraq. Turkey wants to clear ISIS from its southern border. Credit Hadi Mizban/Associated Press WASHINGTON — American and Turkish officials are discussing a joint effort to clear Islamic State fighters away from Turkey ’s southern border, a senior State Department official said on Monday. The official did not provide details or explain what role American air power might play, but he said that discussions with Turkish officials had progressed after several rocky months. “We are looking for things we can do in a very material and tangible way,” the official said. “We want to get those extremists off their border. We want to look at a way that we can do that cooperatively with them.” Senior officials from the United States-led coalition that is fighting the Islamic State group are scheduled to meet in Paris on Tuesday […]
AMMAN, Jordan — The Islamic State advanced against rival insurgents in northern Syria on Sunday, capturing areas close to a border crossing with Turkey and threatening their supply route to the city of Aleppo, fighters and a group monitoring the war said. The Islamic State captured the town of Soran Azaz and two nearby villages, giving it the ability to move along a road leading north to the Bab al-Salam crossing between the Syrian province of Aleppo and the Turkish province of Kilis, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain that tracks the war through a network of contacts in Syria. The loss of Soran Azaz is a blow to northern rebels in the Levant Front because it sits on an important weapons supply route, two alliance fighters said. “The main supply line between Turkey and Aleppo will be severely affected,” Abu […]
BEIRUT Insurgents who captured the last government-held town in Syria’s Idlib province celebrated inside on Friday and made more advances in surrounding areas, in a further blow to the stretched army and allied militia. The "Army of Fatah" alliance which includes al Qaeda’s Syria wing Nusra Front, the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham group and other factions, captured Ariha town on Thursday night as the Syrian military pulled back. The army has lost large parts of the northwestern province to insurgents since late March, when the provincial capital fell to Army of Fatah, a name which refers to Islamic conquest. The recent advances have brought insurgents closer to the coastal Latakia province, President Bashar al-Assad’s ancestral homeland and an area of importance to his government. The army and allied militia have increasingly focused on defending Syria’s western flank which includes Latakia, Homs city and Damascus further south. By Friday the insurgents […]
