TELL ABIAD, Syria, June 30 (UPI) — Islamic State militants re-captured from Kurdish forces a district in a strategic border town in Syria, according to a human rights monitoring group.
On Tuesday IS fighters gained control over the Mashor Foqani district on the eastern outskirts of the town of Tell Abiad, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Kurdish forces in Syria, known as People’s Protection Units, or the YPG, seized the Syria-Turkey border town on June 16, depriving IS forces in their de-facto capital of Raqqa, 60 miles south, of a vital supply point for weapons and fighters.
The Kurdish capture of Tell Abiad was preceded by YPG seizures of several villages in the countryside north of Raqqa and followed by last week’s IS loss of Ain Issa, a village lying on a strategic road intersection 30 miles north of the IS capital.
The Kurdish capture of Tell Abiad allowed YPG forces to link with Kurds in the east toward the Iraqi border and west, toward Kobani, where a months-long battle ended IS domination in January.
The fresh IS assault on Tell Abiad joins other counter-attacks over the past week, including an IS incursion into Kobani that has resulted in hundreds of deaths, the BBC reports.
SOHR, a Britain-based group that monitors the civil war in Syria, reported that dozens of IS militants still occupy villages between the Aleppo and Hasakah provinces and the Turkish border.
YPG forces are now reportedly attempting to encircle IS fighters in Tell Abiad and prevent further counter-thrusts.
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