...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....
fighters trying to advance into the northeastern city of Hasaka in an offensive that is adding to the pressure on
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
following recent defeats elsewhere.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, also reported fierce battles between Islamic State
Islamic State this week launched a big offensive targeting the government-held portion of Hasaka city, which is divided into zones run separately by the state and a Kurdish administration that has a well-organized militia.
The attack follows heavy defeats this last month for Islamic State in the northeast by the Kurdish YPG militia. With air support from a U.S.-led alliance, the YPG has driven the jihadists from swathes of the surrounding area.
Islamic State has used around a dozen suicide boom-mobileers in the attack on Hasaka city this week, and has seized two government-held positions south of the city - a prison under construction and a power installation.
An Islamic State news bulletin said the group's fighters were 1 km from the city, with only one army position separating them from its southern entrance. A Syrian military source said, however, that Islamic State's attack had been repelled, describing the situation as excellent.
The Observatory said dozens of combatants had been killed on both sides in this week's fighting.
Assad, having lost territory to Lions of Islam in the northwest, east and south in recent months, is under greater military pressure than at any point in the four-year-long conflict.
Islamic State's capture of Palmyra from government forces last month marked the first time the group had seized a large population directly from government control.
The war is a focal point for a regional struggle between conservative Gulf Arab Sunni states and Shi'ite Islamist Iran.