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Kurdish fighters cut key supply line to Islamic State capital Raqqa Kurdish forces seize border town of Tal Abyad, cutting off key Isis supply line
(about 14 hours later)
Syrian Kurdish fighters have cut a key supply line to the Islamic State group’s de facto capital Raqqa, as they battled to seize the jihadist-held border town of Tal Abyad. Kurdish fighters have taken control of the border town of Tal Abyad, dealing a significant blow to Islamic State’s ability to wage war in Syria by cutting off a supply line to its self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa.
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The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) said their forces and affiliated Syrian rebel fighters approaching from east and west of Tal Abyad had connected and cut the road south to Raqqa on Monday. A senior Kurdish commander, Haqi Kobane, said on Tuesday that the Kurdish YPG militia units that he leads, along with their allies from the Free Syrian Army, were starting to clear booby traps and mines in Tal Abyad. The Isis had been in control of the town on the Turkish border for more than a year.
“Tal Abyad is completely surrounded,” said YPG commander Hussein Khojer. “Daesh has been broken at the hands of the YPG ... It is a victory for all Syrians,” he said by phone from northern Syria, using the Arabic acronym for Isis.
“There is nowhere Daesh can escape to,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for Isis. The Kurdish advance has displaced 23,000 people who have fled to Turkey to escape the fighting, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR.
Khojer said Kurdish fighters, backed by Syrian rebel groups, had advanced on Tal Abyad in a two-front offensive from east and west. An Associated Press team on the Turkish side of the Akçakale border crossing said a large black and white Isis flag was taken down on Tuesday in Tal Abyad and replaced with a yellow, triangular YPG flag.
Sherfan Darwish, a spokesman for the Burkan al-Furat rebel group fighting alongside the YPG, said the anti-Isis alliance was now on the eastern and southern outskirts of Tal Abyad. The border was calm, in sharp contrast to previous days when thousands of Syrians poured through, some making a hole in the fence to break into Turkey. On Tuesday, a few civilians were seen walking around, along with some people on the Turkish side apparently waiting to go back into Syria.
“There are ongoing clashes and the bodies of 19 IS fighters are on the outskirts of Tal Abyad,” he said. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group also confirmed on Tuesday that the YPG seized Tal Abyad with help from the Free Syrian Army.
The advance is a blow to the jihadist group, which is battling to hold onto Tal Abyad and preserve its main supply line between Raqqa and the Turkish border.
Kurdish fighters and Syrian rebels began their main advance on Tal Abyad on 11 June, backed by air strikes from the US-led coalition.
The clashes have prompted thousands of civilians to flee, with some 16,000 crossing into Turkey since last week, despite sporadic border closures.
The flood of refugees has created chaos at times, with some cutting through the border fence or scrambling over loops of barbed wire in frustration at the delay in crossing. Parents passed screaming children over one section of trampled fencing.
Tal Abyad lies 85km (50 miles) north of Raqqa, and analysts say it serves as a primary conduit for incoming weapons and fighters, as well as for outgoing black market oil.
“It has been an IS stronghold for a while now, and it has been described as the gateway to Raqa,” said Charlie Winter, a researcher on jihadism at the London-based Quilliam Foundation.
“Certainly, it’s of strategic importance because it’s a border town through which equipment, recruits, etc, can pass.”
Tal Abyad is also just 70km (40 miles) east of the Kurdish-majority town of Kobani, where Kurdish forces battled for months before expelling invading Isis forces in January.
Tal Abyad serves as the “main lifeblood channel for IS”, connecting Raqa city to the outside world, said Mutlu Civiroglu, a Kurdish affairs analyst.
“Tal Abyad is a financial and logistical hub for IS. Once you cut this hub it is going to be very hard for IS to smuggle in fighters, to sell oil and deal in the other goods they deal in.”
Kurdish forces have been chipping away at Isis territory in Raqa province – once completely under the jihadist group’s control – for around three months.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, they have seized some 50 towns and villages in the province.
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Winter said he expected IS to fight hard to keep the strategic town and to mine it heavily. The takeover of the town marks the biggest setback yet for Isis and puts even more pressure on Raqqa by depriving the group of a direct route for bringing in foreign fighters and supplies, as well as linking the Kurds’ two fronts,.
“I don’t think they’ll give up without a fight.” The US provided air cover for the Kurdish advance, launching concentrated air strikes that targeted Isis fighters inside and along supply routes.
The Kurdish advance has prompted criticism from Turkey, where the YPG-linked Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fought a decades-long insurgency and is listed as a “terrorist” group. The Isis defeat in Tal Abyad is a stunning reversal of fortunes for the group, which only last month captured the provincial capital of Ramadi in Iraq’s Anbar province and the historic town of Palmyra in central Syria.
Nihat Ali Ozcan, an analyst at the Ankara-based TEPAV think tank, said Ankara was concerned about rising “separatist sentiment” among Kurds in Turkey’s southeast. The jihadi group still controls about a third of Iraq and Syria, including the second-largest Iraqi city, Mosul. Extremist fighters continue to battle Iraqi security forces and Shia militias for territory north and east of the capital, Baghdad.
“If Tal Abyad is seized by Kurds, after Kobane’s liberation, Kurds might emerge as a fighting force against Turkey,” Ozcan said. On Tuesday, Iraqi officials said families began returning to Tikrit two and a half months after security forces backed by Shia militias drove Isis out of the Sunni city.
The Kurdish advance has also prompted allegations of “ethnic cleansing” by some Syrian rebel groups, who say YPG forces are expelling Sunni Arabs and Turkmen from the area. The governor of Iraq’s Salahuddin province, Raed al-Jabouri, said about 200 families, who spent the past months either in makeshift camps or half-built and abandoned buildings outside Tikrit, had returned to the provincial capital the day before.
Kurdish forces reject those allegations, saying they have only asked civilians to evacuate potential battle zones to avoid casualties. He added that more than 1,000 families were expected to return on Thursday.
His deputy, Ammar Hikmat, said public services inside the city were still struggling owing to military operations and that authorities were working to restore them. The main challenge was electricity, he said, as the national grid offered less than 10 hours a day of power and many of the generator plants outside Tikrit were not working. Drinking water was available for about 80% of the city.
Jabouri and Hikmat said work was still under way to compensate those who have had their properties damaged.
State television aired footage of security forces guarding buses packed with people, some waving Iraqi flags. Some residents could be seen embracing members of the security forces when they reached Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, while others fired rifles into the air in celebration.
Isis captured Tikrit last summer during its sweep across the country. Iraqi forces managed to retake it following weeks of intense fighting and US-led air strikes, marking their biggest gain yet against the extremist group in Iraq.
According to Iraq’s migration and displaced people ministry, about 400,000 people fled Salahuddin since Tikrit fell in June 2014. Some families have trickled back to liberated areas outside Tikrit, but this the first time they have returned to the city.
After retaking Tikrit in April, officials said it would take time for people to return because bombs needed to be cleared, police stations opened and services restored.