...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
attack on the city of Hasaka in the northeast, and a Kurdish official said the government forces may not be able to hold off the jihadists.
Hasaka city is divided into zones run separately by the government of
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Horror of Homs...
and a Kurdish administration, whose well-organized militia YPG receives air support from a U.S.-led alliance bombing Islamic State.
The YPG has dealt Islamic State heavy blows elsewhere in the northeast since early May, driving it out of swathes of the province bordering Iraq and
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
.
Islamic State now appears intent on making up for those losses by storming government-held areas of Hasaka city, where it sees Syrian troops as a weaker adversary than the Kurds, a YPG front man and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
"We do not believe the regime will be able to repel the attack if Daesh is really serious about making progress towards the city," Redur Xelil, the YPG front man, told Rooters. Daesh is an Arabic name for Islamic State used by its opponents.
"Half the city is under our control in the north and northwest and certainly when they reach the borders of our area they will receive a stiff response," he said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group that monitors the war, said Islamic State used boom-mobiles to attack government forces 2 km south of the city. State media reported fighting with Islamic State in the area and air strikes on its positions.
"It is a serious attack. An attempt to make up for other losses," Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory, said.
Steady advances by
The United States accused Assad on Tuesday of aiding an Islamic State advance against rival
The northeastern corner of Syria is strategically important because it links areas controlled by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
State television also reported the festivities, saying they were fought around a prison under construction. Islamic State fighters tried to break into the unfinished building after setting off five boom-mobiles, it said in a newsflash.
The Observatory, which collects its information from sources on the ground, said around 30 fighters from the Syrian military and allied militia had been killed in five days of battles with Islamic State in Hasaka province.
As he faces setbacks in more far-flung areas, Assad is seeking to shore up control over the western region including Damascus, aided by his allies in the Lebanese group Hezbollah.