Daesh setbacks in Syria and Iraq

Beirut — The Daesh group, which came under attack this weekend by regime forces in Syria and Iraq, has faced major setbacks in the two neighboring countries over the past year. The latest offensives against Daesh, which has carried out brazen attacks in Europe, come as the jihadist group claimed suicide attacks on the Brussels airport and a metro station that killed 31 people. “The more IS (Daesh) loses territory in Syria, the more they will export attacks,” a senior French counter-terrorism official warned this week after the Belgium bombings. Here are the key Daesh losses since January 2015: After a series of victories, Daesh suffers its first serious setback on January 26, 2015, in Kobani, a Syrian town near the border with Turkey known in Arabic as Ain Al-Arab. Kurdish forces backed by intense US-led air strikes capture the town after four months of fighting. In June, Syrian Kurds also captured Tal Abyad, another town near the border that controls a supply route to Raqa, the Daesh de facto capital in northern Syria. Iraqi troops, police and Shiite-dominated paramilitary forces retake Tikrit, the home town of the late dictator Saddam Hussein, on March 31. — AFP