IS ‘ cut off from rest of the world’

> Group loses last stretch of Syria-Turkey border: Monitor

DAMASCUS: The Islamic State (IS) group has lost control of its last territories on the border with Turkey, monitoring groups say, in a major blow to the militants’ ability to receive foreign fighters from the rest of the world.

Speaking to The Independent, a spokesman for the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said IS had conceded control of its last two villages on the border, retreating to positions around 8km to the south.

It completes an operation to take control of the area by the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), backed by a Turkish ground offensive that began at the town of Jarablus on Aug 24.

On Saturday, more Turkish tanks rolled over the border into Al-Rai, a town some 55km west of Jarablus, and over the weekend a pincer Turkish-rebel offensive has been closing the gap between the two.

Rami Abdulrahman, from the UK-based Observatory, said: “Everything is finished. There is no more IS at the border.”

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency also reported that the advance had removed “IS physical contact with the Turkish border in northern Syria”.

After three years in control of portions of the border, IS grasp over the last villages dissolved in a matter of hours.

Three hours before the Turkish-rebel advance was complete, the jihadist group was still reported as holding four villages.

Two hours before, the Observatory had said only 4km to 6km was still under IS control at the border with just two villages and a farm, and after that the FSA was expected to control the whole area.

“It will be a few hours, and then IS will be cut off from the rest of the world.”

Turkish-backed rebels have been closing in on IS on two sides from Jarablus and AlRai, leaving only a tiny stretch still connecting the militant group with the rest of the world.

It became apparent they were losing control of the border area when the key town of Manbij fell in early August.

Asked how the Turkish-led offensive had been able to secure a stretch of 55km in just two days, mopping up a dozen or more towns and villages, Abdulrahman said: “IS have stopped fighting there, they are moving out.

“We said after they lost Manbij, IS would start to lose everywhere. Sure enough, when the Turkish forces went into Jarablus that was not really fighting, there was no one killed from either side.”

For IS, it seems the link to Turkey became too hard to maintain.

“IS is losing the border because they had operations against the FSA, and also operations against the Kurds, and against the regime,” Abdulrahman said, suggesting the militants will redeploy their fighters elsewhere. – The Independent