Syrian Kurds take town, base near IS stronghold

Author: Associated Press
Published:

BEIRUT (AP) – Syrian Kurdish fighters and their allies on Tuesday captured a town once held by the Islamic State group, inching closer to the main IS stronghold in Syria and the de facto capital of the militants’ self-proclaimed caliphate.

The capture of the town of Ein Issa – hours after the Kurdish troops took the nearby Brigade 93 military base – further squeezes the IS extremists, especially after they lost a major supply line when the Kurds captured the town of Tal Abyad on the Turkish border last week.

The advance put the Kurdish fighters within about 50 kilometers (30 miles) of the Islamic State’s stronghold of Raqqa. But even with the aid of U.S.-led airstrikes, battling even closer to Raqqa could prove costly for the Kurds and allied Syrian rebel factions.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Kurdish activist Mustafa Bali said Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, captured the military base on Monday night.

Later Tuesday, the Observatory and YPG spokesman Redur Khalil said Kurdish fighters and their allies took over the nearby town of Ein Issa, the last major residential area north of Raqqa. The Islamic State group considers Raqqa the capital of its self-declared “caliphate” spanning Syria and Iraq.

“Ein Issa and dozens of villages around it are under our control,” Khalil said over the telephone. He said the next task is to reinforce and protect the areas ahead of any counterattack.

The Observatory said the YPG and its allies are also trying to gain control of a highway linking the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, with the northeastern city of Hassakeh.

The YPG’s official Facebook page said “dozens of Daesh mercenaries were killed” at the Brigade 93 base, using an Arabic acronym for the extremist group. The Observatory said Islamic State militants transferred the corpses of 26 of its fighters to Raqqa after they were killed in Ein Issa by airstrikes.

“Operations will continue, but it is imperative that we first attempt to secure areas under our control,” said Nawaf Khalil, head of the Germany-based Kurdish Center for Studies. “Raqqa is a vast area and attacking it will need a great deal of coordination with other groups and the international alliance.”

The spokesman for the Islamic State group meanwhile released an audio statement promising victory despite the recent setbacks.

“God never gave the mujahedeen a promise of victory every time,” Abu Mohammed al-Adnani said in an audio message circulated by supporters on Tuesday. The faithful “may lose a battle or battles and may lose towns and areas but will never be defeated,” he added.

The United States has found a reliable partner in the YPG, which has been the main force in the battle against the Islamic State group in Syria. The Kurds are moderate, mostly secular fighters, driven by revolutionary fervor and deep conviction in their cause. They are backed by Arab tribesmen, Assyrian Christian gunmen and members of the rebel faction known as Burkan al-Furat – Arabic for the “Volcano of the Euphrates.”

It remained unclear whether the Kurds would push further toward Raqqa. Also, despite the recent Kurdish gains, IS militants still have another supply line from Turkey, this one running through northwestern Syria to Raqqa.

When cornered in the past, the militants have relied on coordinated mass suicide car bomb attacks and other scorched-earth tactics.

Those tactics have included mass killings. On Tuesday, a media arm of the Islamic State group in Iraq posted a video online purporting to show the killing of over a dozen men it described as spies by drowning them in a cage, decapitating them with explosives and firing a rocket-propelled grenade at them in a car.

In the audio statement, al-Adnani called on IS fighters to redouble their efforts during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, telling supporters to “attack them everywhere and shake the ground beneath them.”

He also said IS fighters had surrounded the town of Haditha in Iraq’s western Anbar province and called on police and pro-government fighters to surrender. The IS group captured the capital of Anbar, Ramadi, last month.

“If we enter Haditha before you repent we will make you an example for generations, by God,” he said.

It was not immediately possible to verify the recording but it resembled previous audio statements from the group.

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