US-backed Syria rebels capture Daesh-held base near Iraq border

Amman, Beirut: A spokesman for US-backed Syrian rebels and an activist group say the rebels have seized a small military base that was held by Daesh near the Iraqi border.

Wednesday’s capture of the Hamdan airbase, which has served as an Daesh outpost, came just hours after the launch of a new offensive seeking to cut the militants’ transit link between Syria and Iraq.

Mozahem Al Saloum, spokesman for the Pentagon-trained New Syrian Army, says there was extensive air support from the US-led international coalition during the operation and that airborne fighters were dropped onto the southern edge of the border town of Al Bu Kamal to help the rebel advance.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says several rebel factions were involved, bringing ground troop numbers to several hundred.

The offensive on Al Bu Kamal is aimed at cutting the terrorists’ self-declared caliphate into two.

The operation aiming to capture the eastern town of Al Bu Kamal, which began on Tuesday, adds to the pressure facing Daesh as it faces a separate, US-backed offensive in northern Syria aimed at driving it away from the Turkish border.

The offensive is being waged by rebels of the New Syria Army formed some 18 months ago from insurgents driven from eastern Syria at the height of Daesh’s rapid expansion in 2014. Rebel sources say it has been trained with US support.

“The clashes are inside the (town) and matters are not yet settled,” said the rebel commander of the Asala WA Al Tanmiya Front, one of the main elements of the New Syria Army. The rebel forces entered the town at dawn, he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the offensive was being mounted with backing of Western special forces and US-led air strikes.

Daesh’s capture of Al Bu Kamal in 2014 effectively erased the border between Syria and Iraq. Losing it would be a huge symbolic and strategic blow to the cross-border “caliphate” led by Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.

The town is just a few kilometres from the Iraqi frontier in Deir Al Zor province, nearly all of which is under Daesh control.

The US-led campaign against Daesh has gone up a gear this month, with an alliance of militias including the Kurdish YPG launching a major offensive against Daesh in the city of Manbij in northern Syria. In Iraq, the government this week declared victory over Daesh in Fallujah.

Syrian rebel sources say the rebel force has received military training in US-run camps in Jordan, but most of their training was now being conducted in a main base at Al Tanf, a Syrian town southwest of Al Bu Kamal at the border with Iraq.

The New Syria Army’s base in Al Tanf was hit twice earlier this month by Russian air strikes, even after the US military used emergency channels to ask Moscow to stop after the first strike, US officials say.

The rebel commander and the Observatory said the rebels had also captured an airbase from Daesh terrorists near Al Bu Kamal. Heavy clashes were underway, with militants dug in at the Hamadan airbase, 5km northwest of Al Bu Kamal.

The rebels also announced the capture of nearby Hamadan village. US-led coalition air strikes had hit militant hideouts in the town, the Observatory said.

Daesh militants have cut power and communications in Al Bu Kamal and dug trenches around the town, rebel sources say.

The rebel force, numbering several hundred, had secured the desert approaches to Al Bu Kamal after a rapid advance across sparsely inhabited desert from Al Tanf.

A US Defence Department spokesman, Major Adrian JT Rankine-Galloway, declined on Tuesday to comment on the latest campaign but said Washington was assisting unnamed Syrian rebel groups.