Islamic State Cuts Off Crucial Supply Line for Syrian Regime to Aleppo

This development came about 10 days after regime forces and their allies started a major offensive against rebels in the countryside around Aleppo with the backing of Russian airstrikes. The news underscored Islamic State’s ability to exploit the situation on the ground to its advantage. It also showed the constraints and challenges facing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his eagerness to leverage Moscow’s military support to recapture territory and alter battlefield dynamics in the more than four-year conflict.

Fierce battles were continuing Tuesday between Islamic State and pro-regime forces around the town of Safira, about 16 miles southeast of Aleppo, according to opposition activists. Some of these activists said Islamic State was already in control of parts of Safira.

The town lies on a critical supply line for the regime running from parts of Aleppo city that it controls to neighboring Hama province to the south and onward to the central city of Homs and the capital Damascus.

Fighting has also been under way for days at other junctures along the supply line, most notably around the towns of Athriya and Khanaser, farther south from Safira.

A news website linked to Islamic State called A’maq said regime reinforcements sent to Athriya on Tuesday were compelled to retreat after militants detonated bombs planted alongside the road.

On Monday, Islamic State captured a regime checkpoint on the stretch of road between Athriya and Khanaser in a coordinated assault that included a suicide car bombing, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based opposition group monitoring the conflict through activists inside the country.

Syria’s state news agency said the Syrian air force carried out several airstrikes against Islamic State positions between Athriya and Khanaser but gave no details.

It would be a major blow for the regime and its allies if Islamic State succeeds in holding on to its advances along the supply line and disrupts it for much longer.

The supply line was secured two years ago after pro-Assad forces, including Shiite militias overseen and backed by Iran, fought pitched battles with rebel groups for months.

Sections of the main Damascus-Aleppo highway have been cut off for more than three years, making the supply line through Safira, Khanaser and Athriya the only way to access regime-held neighborhoods on the west side of Aleppo. Rebels control most of Aleppo’s eastern half and large parts of the surrounding countryside, while Islamic State is present northeast and east of the city and has been making steady advances since the start of Russian airstrikes at the end of September.

The regime, Iran and Russia have largely focused their efforts over the past month on rebel groups in northern and central Syria including those who have received weapons from the U.S. The assault they launched against rebels south of Aleppo earlier this month has allowed them to recapture some villages, but has so far failed to achieve anything beyond that including reopen the Aleppo-Damascus highway.

Separately, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and other activists said that Islamic State militants in the city of Palmyra executed three people by tying them to ancient columns rigged with explosives and then detonating the structures.

This information could not be independently confirmed. Maamoun Abdul-Karim, Syria’s director general of antiquities and museums, said he also heard about it from activists on the ground. “They are not only shedding lives, but they are using priceless world heritage to do that,” he said.

Islamic State, which captured Palmyra in May, has already destroyed some of the ancient city’s most iconic monuments including the vaunted 2,000-year-old Arch of Triumph earlier this month and the Temple of Bel in August.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-state-cuts-off-crucial-supply-line-for-syrian-regime-to-aleppo-1445972386