Beirut: The jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) group took control of the rebel-held half of the eastern Syrian city of Deir Al Zor on Monday, buoyed by advances in neighbouring Iraq, a monitoring group said.
Rival rebel groups fighting forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad either gave in and joined the jihadists or fled from the strategic Euphrates valley city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Al Assad forces remain in control of the other half of the city, a provincial capital and pre-war hub of the country’s oil industry.
According to the Observatory, Isil jihadists are now in control of “95 to 98 per cent of Deir Al Zor province”.
Only the regime-controlled half of Deir Al Zor city, a handful of villages and the military airport remain out of Isil control.
The Observatory said that rivals of Isil, including fighters of Al Qaida’s Syria affiliate Al Nusra Front, lost control after negotiations failed with the jihadists who proclaimed a “caliphate” straddling Syria and Iraq last month.
“Fighters from Al Nusra Front and the Islamist rebel movement Ahrar Al Sham withdrew from their bases in the city, while others pledged their loyalty to Isil,” the Observatory said.
“Isil killed the Deir Al Zor chief of Al Nusra, and raised their flag in the city,” it added.
An activist in Deir Al Zor confirmed the reports, and said the jihadists’ opponents are poorly equipped in comparison.
Isil seized huge supplies of weapons and money in Iraq’s second city Mosul last month in a lightning offensive that saw it capture a swathe of territory north and west of Baghdad.
Its gains in Iraq have tipped the balance in the struggle for power in rebel-held areas of eastern and northern Syria where it has been fighting Al Nusra and its rebel allies since January.
Isil already controls the city of Raqa upstream from Deir Al Zor where it has earned a reputation for brutality in its enforcement of its extreme form of Islam, with public executions, including crucifixions.
