Syrian rebels plea for help amid Islamic State push
Militants advance toward Aleppo, also kill 41 in Iraq
HADI MIZBAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Fighters with the Badr Brigades, a
Shi’ite militia, clashed with Islamic State militants in Iraq’s Anbar
province Monday, 30 miles from where a police base was attacked.
GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Syrian rebels appealed for international
assistance to counter a new offensive by the Islamic State in the
northern province of Aleppo that could reshape the battlefield in Syria.
The surprise assault launched over the weekend opened a new front in the multipronged war being waged by the extremist group across Iraq and Syria, and it underscored the Islamic State’s capacity to catch its enemies off guard.
The push took the militants within reach of the strategically vital town of Azaz on the Turkish border and followed their capture of the Syrian city of Palmyra and the western Iraqi city of Ramadi late last month.
The offensive reinforces the impression that the Islamic State is regaining momentum despite more than eight months of US-led airstrikes.
In Iraq on Monday, three Islamic State suicide bombers targeted a police base in the western province of Anbar, using explosives-laden Humvees, the Associated Press reported. The attack killed at least 41 police and Shi’ite militiamen, officials said.
The attack on a police station in the Tharthar area north of Ramadi, a provincial capital, caused a large secondary explosion in an ammunition depot, the officials said. Another 63 security forces members were wounded in the attack.
After the Islamic State seized five villages in the new Syrian offensive, rebel groups rushed reinforcements to the farmland north of the contested city of Aleppo. Rebel fighters in jeeps and pickup trucks hurtled toward the front lines, while civilians fled in the opposite direction, seeking refuge closer to the Turkish border.
Videos posted on social media accounts allied with the Islamic State showed the group controlling checkpoints in the small town of Sawran, and an image depicted four heads from decapitated bodies tossed into the back of a truck.
Azaz controls access to one of the most important border crossings between Syria and Turkey and is a lifeline for rebel forces in the city of Aleppo. If the town were to fall, their supply lines would be cut and the entire rebel presence in the province would be jeopardized, rebel commanders said.
“Automatically the Islamic State would gain control of Aleppo city,” said Abu Mohammed, a leader of the rebel group Thuwar al-Sham based in the Turkish town of Gaziantep. “The situation is dire.”
Control of the area would also extend the Islamic State’s reach along the Turkish border, amplifying its capacity to secure supplies and smuggle in foreign fighters at a time when Turkey’s government has imposed severe restrictions on travelers along its 580-mile border with Syria.
The specter of a fight for Azaz drew comparisons with the battle last fall for the border town of Kobani, 80 miles away, where Kurdish fighters withstood a fierce assault by the Islamic State only after US warplanes intervened.
But the prospect of US intervention on behalf of rebels in the Aleppo area would probably be complicated by the presence of the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front alongside more moderate rebel groups.
The rebels have asked the international coalition to carry out strikes and have presented coordinates of Islamic State positions, “but so far we have heard nothing,” Abu Mohammed said.
This latest battle brought into focus the complexity of the war in Syria, where the Islamic State, the government of President Bashar Assad, the opposition, and Syrian Kurds are fighting one another at different times and places.
The opposition had been on the brink of launching an offensive to push weakened government troops out of the loyalist-controlled portion of Aleppo city and were unprepared for the attack on their northern flank.
The Islamic State offensive coincided with a wave of barrel bombings by the government over the weekend that reportedly killed more than 100 people, threw rebel ranks into disarray, and drew allegations of coordination between Assad’s regime and the militants.
Colonel Mohammed al-Ahmed, a spokesman for the main rebel coalition in Aleppo, Jabhat al-Shamiya, alleged a “shared bargain” between the government and the Islamic State to sabotage rebel plans to seize Aleppo.
“The coordination . . . is clear proof that the two partners, the Islamic State and Assad, are on one side against the mujahideen revolutionaries in Syria,” he said.
In Iraq, Monday’s suicide bombing attack resembled the massive, coordinated assault launched on Ramadi last month that allowed Islamic State militants to capture the city, marking their biggest gain since a US-led coalition began launching airstrikes against the extremist group in August.
Also Monday, the United Nations mission to Iraq said more than 1,031 people were killed and another 1,648 were wounded in violence across the country last month.
But, the UNAMI statement excluded deaths from ongoing fighting in Anbar because of problems in verifying the casualties.
The figures also leave out insurgent deaths.
The surprise assault launched over the weekend opened a new front in the multipronged war being waged by the extremist group across Iraq and Syria, and it underscored the Islamic State’s capacity to catch its enemies off guard.
The push took the militants within reach of the strategically vital town of Azaz on the Turkish border and followed their capture of the Syrian city of Palmyra and the western Iraqi city of Ramadi late last month.
The offensive reinforces the impression that the Islamic State is regaining momentum despite more than eight months of US-led airstrikes.
In Iraq on Monday, three Islamic State suicide bombers targeted a police base in the western province of Anbar, using explosives-laden Humvees, the Associated Press reported. The attack killed at least 41 police and Shi’ite militiamen, officials said.
The attack on a police station in the Tharthar area north of Ramadi, a provincial capital, caused a large secondary explosion in an ammunition depot, the officials said. Another 63 security forces members were wounded in the attack.
After the Islamic State seized five villages in the new Syrian offensive, rebel groups rushed reinforcements to the farmland north of the contested city of Aleppo. Rebel fighters in jeeps and pickup trucks hurtled toward the front lines, while civilians fled in the opposite direction, seeking refuge closer to the Turkish border.
Videos posted on social media accounts allied with the Islamic State showed the group controlling checkpoints in the small town of Sawran, and an image depicted four heads from decapitated bodies tossed into the back of a truck.
Azaz controls access to one of the most important border crossings between Syria and Turkey and is a lifeline for rebel forces in the city of Aleppo. If the town were to fall, their supply lines would be cut and the entire rebel presence in the province would be jeopardized, rebel commanders said.
“Automatically the Islamic State would gain control of Aleppo city,” said Abu Mohammed, a leader of the rebel group Thuwar al-Sham based in the Turkish town of Gaziantep. “The situation is dire.”
Control of the area would also extend the Islamic State’s reach along the Turkish border, amplifying its capacity to secure supplies and smuggle in foreign fighters at a time when Turkey’s government has imposed severe restrictions on travelers along its 580-mile border with Syria.
The specter of a fight for Azaz drew comparisons with the battle last fall for the border town of Kobani, 80 miles away, where Kurdish fighters withstood a fierce assault by the Islamic State only after US warplanes intervened.
But the prospect of US intervention on behalf of rebels in the Aleppo area would probably be complicated by the presence of the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front alongside more moderate rebel groups.
The rebels have asked the international coalition to carry out strikes and have presented coordinates of Islamic State positions, “but so far we have heard nothing,” Abu Mohammed said.
This latest battle brought into focus the complexity of the war in Syria, where the Islamic State, the government of President Bashar Assad, the opposition, and Syrian Kurds are fighting one another at different times and places.
The opposition had been on the brink of launching an offensive to push weakened government troops out of the loyalist-controlled portion of Aleppo city and were unprepared for the attack on their northern flank.
The Islamic State offensive coincided with a wave of barrel bombings by the government over the weekend that reportedly killed more than 100 people, threw rebel ranks into disarray, and drew allegations of coordination between Assad’s regime and the militants.
Colonel Mohammed al-Ahmed, a spokesman for the main rebel coalition in Aleppo, Jabhat al-Shamiya, alleged a “shared bargain” between the government and the Islamic State to sabotage rebel plans to seize Aleppo.
“The coordination . . . is clear proof that the two partners, the Islamic State and Assad, are on one side against the mujahideen revolutionaries in Syria,” he said.
In Iraq, Monday’s suicide bombing attack resembled the massive, coordinated assault launched on Ramadi last month that allowed Islamic State militants to capture the city, marking their biggest gain since a US-led coalition began launching airstrikes against the extremist group in August.
Also Monday, the United Nations mission to Iraq said more than 1,031 people were killed and another 1,648 were wounded in violence across the country last month.
But, the UNAMI statement excluded deaths from ongoing fighting in Anbar because of problems in verifying the casualties.
The figures also leave out insurgent deaths.
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