Daesh ‘besieged’ in last bastion in Aleppo province

BEIRUT — The Daesh (the so-called IS) group was “completely besieged” in Al-Bab after forces loyal to Syria’s regime cut off a road into the militants’ last major stronghold in Aleppo province, a monitor said Monday. “Al-Bab is now completely besieged by the regime from the south, and the Turkish forces and rebels from the east, north and west,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It came after “the regime’s forces and allied militia seized the only and last main road used by the militants between Al-Bab and Raqa,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP, referring to the militants’ de facto capital in Syria. The town of Al-Bab, 25 kilometers (15 miles) south of the border with Turkey, is seen as a prize by nearly all sides in the complex war. Backed by air strikes, government forces and their allies severed the main road that links the city near the Turkish border to other IS-held territory in Raqqa and Deir Al-Zor provinces. The Syrian army’s advance towards Al-Bab risks triggering a confrontation with the Turkish military and its allies, groups fighting under the Free Syria Army banner, which have been waging their own campaign to take the city. In less than three weeks, Syrian army units moved to within 5 km (3 miles) of Al-Bab, as Damascus seeks to stop its neighbor, Turkey, penetrating deeper into a strategic area of northern Syria. Turkey launched its campaign in August in Syria, “Euphrates Shield”, in order to secure its frontier from Daesh and halt the advance of the powerful Kurdish YPG militia. Turkish troops and FSA rebels clashed heavily with IS militants around the town of Bazaa, east of Al-Bab, in recent days, the Observatory said. Turkish-backed forces had briefly captured the town before Daesh suicide bombers pushed them out on Saturday. The Observatory also reported fighting south of Al-Bab on Monday between government forces and Daesh. Al-Bab sits 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Aleppo, where the government defeated rebels in December, its most important gain of the nearly six-year-old war.