Syrian insurgents were battling the Islamic State (IS) group for control of a key border post with Iraq on Saturday, a day after the US-backed fighters seized control of the crossing, activists said.
The Tanf crossing in southeastern Syria links the Homs Province, including the Islamic State-held ancient city of Palmyra, to Iraq’s Anbar Province, where the extremists have a large presence. The Islamic State group uses border crossings to shift fighters and resources to different fronts as it seeks to defend and expand its self-styled Islamic caliphate.
The Islamic State group captured the Tanf crossing from Syrian government forces in May last year.
Photo: Reuters
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on activists inside Syria, said Islamic State militants recaptured the crossing, but the Homs Media Center, another opposition outlet, said clashes were still underway.
The fighting began on Friday when US-backed fighters from the Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army routed Islamic State militants at the border, killing one and wounding several others, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition network in Syria.
The Observatory said the Free Syrian Army fighters crossed into Syria from Jordan to launch the attack and were supported by airstrikes from the US-led coalition.
The Islamic State-affiliated Aamaq news agency denied the crossing was ever captured.
Meanwhile, Islamic State militants attacked the government’s supply route to the contested northern city of Aleppo, killing 15 soldiers, the Observatory said.
Syrian government forces repelled the attack and secured the road, according to the Observatory and the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
SANA said government forces killed dozens of Islamic State militants in the clashes. A US counterterrorism official said the Islamic State group has lost important ground in Syria in recent weeks.
“The overall square kilometers that DAESH has now lost in Syria has increased exponentially in just over the last couple weeks. But it’s not just the territories, it’s the strategic nature of the territory,” US President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, Brett McGurk, said at a press conference in Baghdad, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.
The group still controls large swaths of Syria and Iraq, including Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. It has also carried out a number of large bombings in Iraq over the past week that have killed dozens of people.
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