Islamic State fighters capture power station
Militants have now reached the gates of Kurdish city, Syrian activists say
BEIRUT— Islamic State militants fighting in Syria on Friday reached the southern gates of the predominantly Kurdish northeastern city of Hassakeh amid intense air raids and shelling, Syrian activists and the extremist group’s radio station said.
The Islamic State group has been attacking Hassakeh city since May 30, facing stiff resistance from government forces. The city has been split between government forces and Kurdish fighters who have been attacking Islamic State positions elsewhere in the province.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that Islamic State fighters captured a power station and an unfinished juvenile prison building just south of Hassakeh.
The Islamic State radio station, AlBayan, said the militants were about a kilometre from the southern entrance in the city, claiming they had killed dozens of soldiers.
The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees say government warplanes repeatedly attacked Islamic State forces near Hassakeh on Friday. The Observatory said 71 government troops as well as 48 Islamic State fighters were killed in Hassakeh over the past week.
Members of the Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, have not joined the battle in the city so far, but one of its commanders, Polan Jan, said in comments posted on the group’s official Facebook page that “we will not allow Daesh or others to control our Kurdish city of Hassakeh.” Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the group.
YPG have been advancing in northern Syria against Islamic State fighters for weeks, under the cover of the U.S.-led coalition that is bombing Islamic State positions.
Elsewhere, the Kurdish fighters are closing in on the Islamic State group in Tel Abyad, capturing towns and villages in the oil-rich swath in the country’s northeast — again, supported by U.S.-led airstrikes.
Tel Abyad is a key link between Turkey and the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital. The Raqqa-based media collective called “Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered” said that U.S.-led coalition warplanes attacked Tel Abyad on Friday.
On Thursday, a Turkish government official said that more than 3,300 Syrians have crossed into Turkey in the past two days fleeing fighting between the Islamic State and the YPG in the Tel Abyad region.