ISIL advances on Turkish border after routing Syrian rivals

Further gains by extremists come as anti-ISIL coalition prepares to review strategy.

An ISIL flag flies atop a damaged military helicopter at Tadmur airbase, which was captured by the extremists in Palmyra in Homs province, Syria. Militant website via AP

BEIRUT // ISIL advanced towards a Syrian border crossing with Turkey on Sunday after seizing areas from rival rebels.

Fighters from the extremist group captured the town of Soran Azaz and two nearby villages, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The group will now be able to move along a road leading to the Bab Al Salam crossing between Aleppo province and the Turkish province of Kilis.

The next stop would be Azaz city 10 kilometres farther north, a gateway to the border crossing.

The latest ISIL advance comes as an international coalition against the extremists prepares to review its strategy following a string of recent setbacks in Syria and Iraq.

ISIL has advanced rapidly in other areas of Syria in recent weeks, capturing the central city of Palmyra and the last border crossing between Syria and Iraq in the east.

However, the main focus of the coalition meeting in Paris on Tuesday will be Iraq, where ISIL seized the city of Ramadi two weeks ago in the biggest blow to the US-led coalition since it began bombarding the militants’ positions in August.

A French foreign ministry spokesman said that while the talks would centre on Iraq, “taking into account the battlefield and the overlapping of the situation, Syria will also be discussed”.

The coalition of some 60 nations, including the UAE, formed last year after ISIL went on a rampage across Iraq and Syria, seizing key territory upon which it declared a caliphate.

With no one willing to send troops into battle, the campaign has relied on airstrikes and efforts to arm and train Iraqi government troops and Sunni tribesmen.

However ISIL’s capture of Ramadi on May 17, followed days later by the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, has raised hard questions about the efficacy of the coalition’s current strategy.

It has also exposed the obstacle of sectarian tensions between the Shiite and Sunni sects of Islam, which run deep in Iraq.

The most effective ground forces against ISIL in Iraq have been Shiite militias mobilised after the Sunni extremists captured vast areas of the country last June. Despite the fears of the Sunni-majority population, the militias have been deployed in the offensive to recapture Ramadi.

In Syria, ISIL is fighting rival insurgents and the Syrian military, as well as Kurdish forces in the country’s eastern regions and northern areas bordering Turkey.

Kurdish militia on Sunday wrested control of a dozen villages from ISIL on either side of the group’s bastion province of Raqqa, the Observatory said.

The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), backed by airstrikes from the anti-ISIL coalition, seized eight villages on the western edges of Raqqa province and four villages near a border town in Hasakeh province, east of Raqga.

Meanwhile, at least 25 people, including many children, were killed on Sunday when a fuel tank exploded at a clinic in the town of Qamishli in Hasakeh, state TV and activists said.

The state news agency Sana, citing police, said dry branches had caught fire and the blaze spread to the fuel tank.

Juan Mohammed, a Kurdish official in the nearby city of Hasakeh, said the explosion happened as the clinic was packed with children waiting to be vaccinated against polio.

Control of the predominantly Kurdish town near the border with Turkey is divided between Kurdish forces and troops loyal to president Bashar Al Assad. The city has been relatively spared from the violence of Syria’s conflict.

Mainly Kurdish YPG forces have been battling ISIL in Hasakeh province, which is strategic for all sides in the conflict because of its position next to ISIL-held territory in Iraq.

Syrian air force strikes on Saturday in Al Shadadi town in the province killed 43 ISIL fighters and 22 civilians, the Observatory said.

The US-led coalition against ISIL has also carried out airstrikes on ISIL positions in the province and has worked in coordination with the Kurds. Both the coalition and the YPG say they do not work with the Syrian military.

The Observatory said the civilians killed in Al Shadadi were among 141 who died in regime airstrikes on Saturday.

Barrel bombs dropped by regime helicopters killed 84 civilians, including children, in the northern province of Aleppo, as well as 20 in a rebel-controlled village in the north-western province of Idlib.

The regime air raids on Saturday also killed civilians in Damascus, Deir Ezzor, and Deraa provinces, the Observatory said.

The United Nations on Sunday condemned the civilian deaths as “totally unacceptable”.

* Reuters with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse and Associated Press