ISIS RETAKES ALMOST ALL OF SYRIA BORDER TOWN: MONITOR

BEIRUT: Islamic State militants have recaptured nearly all of Albu Kamal, putting up a fierce fightback for what had been the last significant Syrian town under their control, a monitor said on Saturday.

Syrian regime forces and allied militia overran Albu Kamal, which lies on the border with Iraq, on Thursday but have since faced a string of IS counter-attacks.

On Saturday, Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said IS had “ambushed” the attacking forces and managed to oust them from most of the town.

IS began counter-attacking on Thursday night, swiftly re taking several northern districts of Al bu Kamal from pro- government fighters.

“It was Daesh’s biggest ambush operation, tricking the attacking forces into thinking they had controlled the city,” Abdel R ah man, head of the monitor said, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

Albu Kamal lies at the heart of what used to be the sprawling “caliphate” that IS declared in 2014 across swathes of Iraq and Syria. Losing it completely would have capped the group’ s reversion to an underground guerrilla organisation with no urban base.

Russia-backed Syrian regime forces and allied fighters had steadily advanced on Albu Kam al from the south and west for weeks, while Iraqi forces had closed in on the border area from the east.