DAMASCUS: The self-styled Islamic State (IS) group consolidated its control of the Iraq-Syria border on Friday after capturing an Iraqi provincial capital and a famed Syrian heritage site in an offensive that has forced a review of US strategy.

The IS militants, who now control roughly half of Syria, reinforced their self-declared and trans-frontier “caliphate” by seizing Syria’s Al-Tanaf crossing on the Damascus-Baghdad highway late on Thursday.

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It was the last regime-held border crossing with Iraq. Except for a short section of border in the north under Kurdish control, all the rest are now held by IS.

The jihadist surge, which has also seen IS take Anbar capital Ramadi and the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, comes despite eight months of US-led air strikes.

It has sparked an exodus of tens of thousands of civilians in both countries and raised fears IS will repeat at Palmyra the destruction it has already wreaked at ancient sites in Iraq’s Nimrud and Mosul.

The United Nations said on Friday at least 55,000 people had fled Ramadi alone since mid-May.

US plays down gains made by militant group

President Barack Obama has played down the IS advance as a tactical “setback” and denied the US-led coalition was “losing” to IS.

But French President Francois Hollande said the world must act to stop the extremists. In Palmyra, at a strategic crossroads between Damascus and the Iraqi border to the east, IS executed at least 17 suspected loyalists of the Damascus government on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Also on Thursday, a Syrian priest and his colleague were kidnapped from a monastery between Homs and Palmyra, the French NGO L’Oeuvre d’Orient said.

Father Jacques Mourad was preparing aid for an influx of refugees from Palmyra and was known to help both Christians and Muslims.

Matthew Henman, head of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre, said the jihadist advance “reinforces IS’s position as the single opposition group that controls the most territory in Syria”.

According to the Observatory, IS gains mean a mere 22 per cent of Syria’s territory is still in regime hands.

Syria’s opposition government in exile said the regime controlled “less than a quarter” of the country. IS’s jihadist rival, Al Qaeda-affiliate Al-Nusra Front, has also been on the offensive as part of a rebel alliance that has stormed through nearly all of the north-western province of Idlib.

On Friday, the alliance overran a hospital in Jisr al-Shughur where at least 150 regime forces and dozens of civilians were trapped for nearly a month, the Observatory said.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2015

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