Your trusted source

ISIS fighters advanced against rival insurgents in northern Syria Sunday, capturing areas close to a border crossing with Turkey and threatening their supply route to Aleppo city, fighters and a group monitoring the war said, The Daily Star reports, citing news agencies.

ISIS captured the town of Soran Azaz and two nearby villages after clashes with fighters from a northern rebel alliance, which was formed last December and includes both Western-backed fighters and Islamist militants.

This means ISIS will be able to move along a road leading north to the Bab al-Salam border crossing between the Syrian province of Aleppo and the Turkish province of Kilis, the anti-regime Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The town’s loss is a blow to rebels grouped in the so-called Jabhat al-Shamiyya alliance (Levant Front), because the area sits on an important supply route to bring weapons into eastern Aleppo, two fighters said.

“The main supply line between Turkey and Aleppo will be severely affected,” said Abu Bakr, an alliance field commander, said in an online message.

Elsewhere, Kurdish militia wrested control of a dozen villages from ISIS either side of the jihadis’ bastion province of Raqqa Sunday, the Observatory said.

The Observatory said the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), backed by airstrikes from a U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition, seized eight villages from jihadis on the western edges of Raqqa province.