8 February 2017 11:18 am
The Islamic State group is ‘completely besieged’ in Al-Bab after forces loyal to Syria’s regime cut off a road into the jihadists’ last major stronghold in Aleppo province.
Syria’s army and its allies advanced towards the northern Islamic-State held city on Monday, cutting off the last main supply route that connects to militant strongholds further east towards Iraq.
Islamic State militants are now effectively besieged in the area, by the army from the south and by Turkish-backed rebels from the north, as Damascus and Ankara race to capture the largest IS stronghold in Aleppo province.
‘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 jihadists between Al-Bab and Raqqa,’ Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said, referring to the jihadists’ de facto capital in Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group monitoring the war, said the army and the Lebanese Hezbollah group made gains southeast of al-Bab overnight.
Backed by air strikes, government forces and their allies severed the main road that linked the city near the Turkish border to other ISIS-held territory in Raqqa and Deir al-Zor provinces.
Daily mail/6 February 2017