Fighting between Islamic State (ISIS) and Syrian rebels near the Turkish border has killed dozens of people in the last two days, as ISIS militants keep up an offensive that has led to rapid territorial gains, a monitoring group said on Saturday.
Advertisement
The hardline group has been fighting against rebels in the area for several months.
For the objective of emergency preparedness, UNHCR has immediately alerted Turkish authorities of developments in northern Syria.
The SDF is an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters that Washington regards as the most effective force on the ground in Syria against the jihadists of ISIS.
Syrian opposition groups said on May 28 that IS militants clashed with rebels holding the town of Marea as the extremist group builds on its most significant advance near the Turkish border in two years.
Islamic State said in a statement it had captured several villages near Azaz.
Worldwide medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said it evacuated patients and staff from a hospital in the area as the fighting got closer, and that tens of thousands of people were trapped between the frontlines and the Turkish border. The advances brought the militants to within a few kilometers (miles) of the rebel-held Azaz and cut off supplies to Marea further south. People are “terrifi ed for their lives”, the International Rescue Committee said in a statement.
The rebel pocket around Azaz, which connects to the Turkish border, is surrounded by IS militants to one side and the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to the other. The conflict began over five years ago as a protest movement calling for government reforms.
Washington’s support for the alliance, which is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), has severely strained relations with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally Ankara which regards it as a terror group. Turkey typically responded by shelling IS positions.
Such a coalition could “easily” head to the Islamic State group’s de facto capital in Raqqa, said Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. Azaz, which hosts tens of thousands of internally displaced people, lies north of Aleppo city, which has been divided between a rebel-held east and governmentheld west.
One fighter inside Marea says that the YPG, a key member of the SDF, has called on rebel factions to hand over the town.
Advertisement
Parts are held by the government, parts by non-jihadist rebels, parts by the Kurds, and parts by ISIS or its jihadist rival Al-Qaeda.
