DAMASCUS // ISIL kept up a counteroffensive on Friday that has rocked US strategy, seizing a key border crossing after capturing an Iraqi provincial capital and a renowned Syrian heritage site.
The militants, who now control roughly half of Syria, reinforced their self-declared transfrontier “caliphate” with the capture of the Al Tanaf to Al Walid crossing on the Damascus-Baghdad motorway.
It was the last border crossing with Iraq still held by the Damascus government. Except for a short section of frontier in the north under Kurdish control, all the rest are now held by ISIL.
The militant surge, which has also seen them capture Anbar capital Ramadi and the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra in the past week, comes despite eight months of US-led air strikes aimed at pushing them back.
It has sparked an exodus of tens of thousands of fearful civilians in both countries and raised fears that the militants will repeat at Palmyra the destruction they have already wreaked at ancient sites in Iraq.
US president Barack Obama played down the ISIL advance as a tactical setback and denied the US-led coalition was “losing” to ISIL.
But French president Francois Hollande said the world must act to stop the extremists and save Palmyra.
Unesco chief Irina Bokova called the 1st and 2nd Century ruins “the birthplace of human civilisation”, adding: “It belongs to the whole of humanity and I think everyone today should be worried about what is happening.”
As the militants fanned out across Palmyra on Thursday, they went door-to-door executing suspected loyalists of the Damascus government, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
At least 17 people were killed, the Britain-based monitoring group said.
Syrian state media said loyalist troops withdrew after “a large number of IS terrorists entered the city,” which lies at a strategic crossroads between Damascus and the Iraqi border to the east.
ISIL proclaimed Palmyra’s capture online and posted video and stills footage of its fighters in the city’s airbase and prison, long notorious for its detention of regime opponents.
The militants did not immediately post pictures of the Unesco-listed world heritage site with its colonnaded streets, elaborately decorated tombs and temples.
ISIL sparked international outrage this year when it blew up the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq.
Syria’s antiquities director Mamoun Abdulkarim said he feared a similar fate awaits Palmyra, and urged the world to “mobilise” to save it.
ISIL now controls “more than 95,000 square kilometres in Syria, which is 50 per cent of the country’s territory,” the Observatory said.
Fabrice Balanche, a French expert on Syria, said “IS now dominates central Syria, a crossroads of primary importance” that could allow it to advance towards the capital and third city Homs.
“Taking Palmyra opens the way to Damascus and Homs. Eventually, this axis can be threatened,” he said.
Matthew Henman, head of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre, said the ISIL advance boosted its claim to be the most effective of the armed groups fighting to overthrow president Bashar Al Assad.
“It reinforces IS’s position as the single opposition group that controls the most territory in Syria,” he said.
The rivals of ISIL, Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front, have also been on the offensive as part of a rebel alliance that has stormed through nearly all of the northwestern province of Idlib.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, called on Friday for a plan to purge the country of ISIL militants after they overran Ramadi.
The fall of Ramadi less than a week ago is the most significant setback for Iraqi forces in almost a year and has cast doubt on the effectiveness of US strategy in helping Iraq to fight ISIL.
In his first sermon since then, Mr Al Sistani’s representative Sheikh Abdulmehdi Al Karbalai did not refer explicitly to the city. But he said: “We must have a precise and wise plan drawn up by professional and patriotic figures... to resolve the military and security issues and begin to purge Iraqi lands of all terrorists.”
Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi has sent Shiite militias to try to retake Ramadi, capital of the westerly Anbar province, at the risk of inflaming tensions with the region’s aggrieved predominantly Sunni population.
The insurgents are now marching east from Ramadi and late on Thursday overran an Iraqi defensive line, advancing towards the Habbaniya military base where troops and Shiite paramilitaries known as Hashid Shaabi were massing.
“The focus has been on defence more than offence: this enables the enemy to have the upper hand,” Mr Al Sistani said. “The initiative must always remain with the armed forces, Hashid and tribal fighters.”
* Agence France-Presse, Reuters