The Islamic State (IS) group consolidated its control of the Iraq-Syria border on Friday after capturing an Iraqi provincial capital and a famed Syrian heritage site in an offensive that has sparked criticism of US military strategy in the region.
A suicide bomber from the extremist Sunni organization also attacked a Shiite mosque in Saudi Arabia, raising sectarian tensions.
The extremists, who now control roughly half of Syria, reinforced their self-declared transfrontier “caliphate” by seizing Syria’s al-Tanaf crossing on the Damascus-Baghdad highway late on Thursday.
Photo: AFP
It was the last regime-held border crossing with Iraq.
The IS surge, which has also seen the group take Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, and the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra in the past week, comes despite eight months of US-led air strikes.
It has sparked an exodus of tens of thousands of civilians in both countries and raised fears that IS, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, is set to repeat at Palmyra the destruction it has already wreaked at ancient sites in Iraq’s Nimrud and Mosul.
The UN on Friday said at least 55,000 people had fled Ramadi alone since the middle of this month, while the Security Council voiced “grave concern” for Palmyra as well as civilians trapped there.
US President Barack Obama has played down the IS advance as a tactical “setback” and denied the US-led coalition was “losing” to IS.
The Pentagon said on Friday coalition aircraft launched five strikes against IS in Syria and 15 against the extremists in Iraq in the 24 hours to 5am.
UNESCO head Irina Bokova called the 1st and 2nd century Palmyra ruins “the birthplace of human civilization,” adding: “It belongs to the whole of humanity and I think everyone today should be worried about what is happening.”
Syrian antiquities director Mamoun Abdulkarim urged the world to “mobilize” to save the treasures at the UNESCO world heritage site with its colonnaded streets and elaborately decorated tombs and temples.
Palmyra is also a strategic crossroads between Damascus and the Iraqi border to the east.
IS executed at least 17 suspected Damascus government loyalists there on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Also on Thursday, a Syrian priest and a colleague were kidnapped from a monastery between Palmyra and Homs, the French non-government organization L’Oeuvre d’Orient said.
Jacques Mourad, who was known to help both Christians and Muslims, was preparing aid for an influx of refugees from Palmyra.
IS now controls “more than 95,000 square kilometers in Syria, which is 50 percent of the country’s territory,” the observatory said.
IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre head Matthew Henman said the extremist advance “reinforces IS’ position as the single opposition group that controls the most territory in Syria.”
According to the observatory, IS gains mean a mere 22 percent of Syria’s territory is still in regime hands.
IS’ rival, al-Qaeda affiliate the al-Nusra Front, has also been on the offensive as part of a rebel alliance that has stormed through nearly all of the northwestern province of Idlib.
On Friday, the alliance overran a hospital in Jisr al-Shughur where at least 150 regime forces and dozens of civilians were trapped for nearly a month, the observatory said.
Dozens managed to escape, but despite a pledge from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to rescue them, others were killed, it said.
The observatory also reported that eight women and three young girls were killed by regime barrel bombs in Aleppo.
Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, a suicide bomber attacked a Shiite mosque, killing and wounding several people, authorities said.
IS said it was responsible, the first time the group has officially claimed an attack in the oil-rich kingdom.
An extremist statement online warned of “dark days ahead” for Shiites until militants “chase them from the Arabian Peninsula.”
The blast and takeover of Palmyra came just days after IS seized Ramadi, its most significant victory since last summer’s lightning advance across swathes of northern Iraq.
Obama blamed the fall of Ramadi on a lack of training and reinforcements for its garrison, saying Iraqi security forces in “Sunni parts of the country” needed speedier support.
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Mutlaq, a leading Sunni Arab, called for a change of US strategy, while the US president has faced domestic calls for a dramatic overhaul of a campaign which has relied on US-led air power backing up US-equipped local forces.
Recruiting Sunni tribes is “important, but not enough,” Mutlaq said, adding that in any case it was “too late.”
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