ISIS makes gains in eastern Syria, Iraq
ISIS militants went on the offensive in eastern Syria Tuesday and have returned to the outskirts of a strategic oil refinery town in Iraq after being driven out last month, The Daily Star reported, citing activist groups and officials.
The U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq launched 10 more strikes against the militants, destroying various fighting positions, the American military said in a statement.
The seven strikes in Syria and three in Iraq also struck a unit of ISIS fighters as well as some of the militants’ oil collection equipment, according to the Combined Joint Task Force for the operation.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-regime monitoring group based in Britain, said ISIS fighters seized territory south of the city of Qamishli, after clashes with Kurdish militia fighters and pro-regime paramilitaries from the National Defense forces. The Observatory said dozens of ISIS fighters had entered Syria’s Hassakeh province, where the clashes were taking place, from Iraq.
In Deir al-Zor province, ISIS militants seized a hill overlooking the military airport on the outskirts of the provincial capital, the Observatory said. Regime forces and paramilitary groups defending the airport have recently beaten back two ISIS attempts to take the facility, one of the last outposts held by the regime in the east of the country.
ISIS fighters destroyed a tank and two heavy machine guns in the clashes, which coincided with 10 regime airstrikes against their positions.
The Observatory said that heavy fighting also took place between ISIS forces and Kurdish militia fighters in the border town of Ain al-Arab, and that three coalition airstrikes targeted the militants during the clashes.
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