Al Nusra’s rebel alliance advances on regime in north-west Syria

Across the border in Iraq, meanwhile, government forces and Shiite militiamen on Saturday repelled two attacks by Al Nusra's rival, ISIL, in the province of Anbar.

An Iraqi soldier takes up position during a military operation in western Samara, northern Iraq on June 5, 2015. According to officials, Iraqi troops backed by Shiite volunteers have made significant gains in their offensive against ISIL in the city of Samara. Baraa Kanaan/EPAShow less

BEIRUT // A rebel alliance including Al Qaeda’s Jabhat Al Nusra seized more territory in northwestern Syria in the early hours of Saturday, strengthening its position on the borders of two key largely regime-controlled provinces, a monitoring group said.

The Army of Conquest rebel alliance had made a series of sweeping gains in the province of Idlib, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Meanwhile, across the border in Iraq, government forces and Shiite militiamen on Saturday repelled two attacks by Al Nusra’s rival, ISIL, in the province of Anbar.

In one attack, Iraqi forces used anti-tank missiles to stop four would-be suicide car bombers.

In Syria, the Army of Conquest alliance seized a major army position, the town of Muhambel, and several villages in the area between Jisr Al Shughur and Ariha, two key towns already under opposition control.

The 24 hours of fighting left 13 opposition fighters dead along with 32 regime forces, the Observatory said.

The rebels’ advance cements their control over that part of Idlib province – almost entirely lost by the government – but also allows the alliance to reinforce its positions on the edges of Latakia and Hama provinces.

These provinces are largely regime-controlled, and Latakia in particular, which lies on the coast, is a government bastion and home to president Bashar Al Assad’s ancestral village.

Al Nusra touted the advances in Idlib on Twitter, listing the “liberation” of several villages and army positions.

State media effectively acknowledged the losses, quoting a military source as saying “the army evacuated several military sites around the town of Muhambel in Idlib province”.

“They relocated to new positions and lines more suitable for the implementation of subsequent combat missions,” the country’s official news agency Sana said.

Regime forces have lost control of nearly all of Idlib province since the Army of Conquest seized the provincial capital at the end of March.

In recent weeks, analysts and observers have said the regime is ready to accept the de facto partition of Syria and is concentrating on holding the areas it considers key and retreating elsewhere.

Elsewhere, the Observatory said that nine people were killed, including two children, in rebel rocket fire on the city of Aleppo.

The group said the rockets hit the Ashrafiyeh district in the western, government-controlled part of the city.

In Iraq, officials said ISIL fighters attacked the government-held town of Husseiba with heavy mortar fire early on Saturday. However, the extremists retreated after an hours-long battle, the officials said, leaving behind three destroyed vehicles and five dead fighters. At least 10 troops and militiamen were wounded in the clash.

Iraqi forces took Husseiba from ISIL last month. The town lies near the militant-held provincial capital of Ramadi.

The officials said that elsewhere in Anbar province, Iraqi troops using Russian anti-tank Kornet missiles destroyed four incoming suicide car bombs during an ISIL attack in the Tharthar area.

Iraqi forces, backed by Shiite militias, have been struggling to recapture areas lost to ISIL in the country’s west and north. Last month the militant group scored a stunning victory, overrunning Ramadi and capturing large amounts of ammunition and armoured vehicles from fleeing government troops.

In the aftermath of the Ramadi defeat, Iraqi officials have stepped up calls for more weapons and more direct support from the United States and the international community.

During an international conference in Paris this week on the fight against ISIL, a senior US official pledged to make it easier to get weapons – including American anti-tank rockets – to the Iraqi soldiers who need them.

On Friday, a top US Air Force general insisted that the American-led air campaign against ISIL was effective, rejecting criticism that it was too slow or overly cautious.

The bombing raids against the extremists in Iraq and Syria have had a “profound effect on the enemy” and taken out “more than a 1,000 enemy fighters a month from the battlefield,” said Lieutenant General John Hesterman, head of the air fleet under US Central Command.

President Barack Obama’s administration has come under criticism at home and abroad over the air campaign, with some lawmakers and retired air force officers accusing Washington of imposing too many limits on military pilots.

Gen Hesterman acknowledged that aircraft in roughly 75 per cent of all strike flights return without dropping bombs, but he said that was because the ISIL militants were not a traditional army and were moving among the local civilian population.

“Targeting a field army is relatively easy. That’s not what we’re doing,” the general said. “The comparisons being made to conflicts against field armies in nation-states don’t apply in this case.”

“This enemy wrapped itself around a friendly population before we even started,” he added.

Also on Saturday, Iraqi police said a bomb exploded at a commercial street in the Taji area, just north of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding five. Meanwhile, another bomb blast near several shops in the capital’s southern suburbs killed three people and wounded eight.

Iraq sees near-daily bombings, which are frequently claimed by ISIL.

* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press