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Backed fighters, mostly Kurds, advance against IS in

At least 61 rebel fighters have been killed in the fighting, as well as 47 militants, nine of them suicide bombers, the Observatory said.

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The civilians have been fleeing fighting between Syrian rebels and militant group Daesh that advanced into the opposition-held town of Marea at the weekend, a significant advance by the jihadists against Turkish-backed insurgents.

Turkish military sources on Sunday said a total of 40 Daesh terrorists were killed in northern Syria during an operation by the Turkish Armed Forces and the US -led coalition on Saturday, Anadolu Agency reports.

IS swept towards the last rebel strongholds of Marea and Azaz in Aleppo province on Friday, forcing thousands to flee towards the northern frontier.

The United Nations has expressed concern for some 165,000 civilians who have been trapped by the fighting between Azaz and the closed Turkish border.

Driving Islamic State from its last remaining foothold at the Turkish border has been a top priority of the USA -led campaign against the group. But the Associated Press earlier in the day quoted the head of one of the last remaining hospitals in Marea as saying the town has been encircled and his hospital under threat since Friday.

At least 29 civilians have been killed since ISIL launched the assault on May 28, the Syrian Observatory reported. Sputnik reported that Turkish soldiers set up a checkpoint at the entrance of the Kurdish city of Afrin in northern Syria.

Marco said many of those who fled the Islamic State onslaught in recent days had already been displaced two or three times from other parts of the province.

The British-based Observatory said the Kurdish YPG militia made up the majority of forces involved in the attack, contradicting USA officials who said the operation would be mostly comprised of Syrian Arab fighters.

Thousands of US -backed fighters opened a major new front in Syria’s war, launching an offensive to drive ISIS out of a swathe of northern Syria it uses as a logistics base, and were reported Wednesday to be making swift progress. An IS-affiliated news agency said coalition aircraft bombed all bridges between the two towns.

Alon Ben-David a reporter for Channel 10 in Israel recently visited the Syrian-Turkish border and said in his first report from Turkey that the Islamic State is doing everything it can to keep the Turkish border open.

The attack struck 58 ISIS targets with artillery and rocket launchers, CNN Turk said on Monday.

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This is also the reason why ISIS launched the attack on the east Aleppo and wanted to take control over the area along the Turkish border.

IS advances near Turkish border, civilians trapped