(MENAFN- Arab Times) The Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said it began an advance towards an Islamic State-held town at the Turkish border on Saturday, thrusting deeper into the jihadists' stronghold of Raqqa province in a campaign backed by US-led air strikes. Redur Xelil, the YPG spokesman, told Reuters the YPG and smaller Syrian Arab rebel groups fighting alongside it had begun the move towards Tel Abyad after encircling the Islamic State-held town of Suluk 20 km (12 miles) to the southeast.
The advance raises the prospect of a battle at the Turkish border between the well-organised YPG militia and Islamic State. Tel Abyad is important to Islamic State as the nearest border town to its de facto capital of Raqqa city.
Fighting near the border has already forced more than 13,000 people to cross into Turkey from Syria. Some 1,500 more are waiting to cross. Turkish soldiers sprayed water and fired into the air when some of them approached the border fence on Saturday, a security source Iraqi Kurdish singer Helly Luv poses for a picture during an interview with AFP in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on June 9. Luv is aiming for international fame as she releases her new English song 'Revolution', calling for action against terrorism and violence. (AFP) € See Page 12 said. The YPG has made a determined push into Raqqa province from neighbouring Hasaka where, with the help of the USled alliance, it has driven Islamic State from wide areas of territory since early May. "The move towards Tel Abyad from the east began today after the completion of the Suluk blockade," Xelil said. "Many of the Daesh militants have fled (Suluk), apart from a group of suicide attackers inside the town and the booby traps, so we are very cautious about entering the town centre," he added via Skype. DAESH is an Arabic name for Islamic State.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organisation that tracks the war, said the YPG fighters were now half-way between Suluk and Tel Abyad, situated across the border from the Turkish town of Akcakle.
Help
For the YPG, seizing Tel Abyad would help them link up Kurdish-controlled areas in Hasaka province and Kobani. The expansion of Kurdish influence in Syria near the border with Turkey is a concern for Ankara, which has long been worried about separatism among its own Kurdish population. The Turkish authorities have closed Akcakale to vehicles and it has been months since they allowed anyone to cross from Tel Abyad into Turkey. However, Turkey still allows people with a valid passport to cross into Syria from Akcakle. The Turkish military has dug trenches in the border area. With the help of US-led air strikes, the YPG fended off an Islamic State attack on the border town of Kobani, or Ayn al- Arab, in January. Since then, the YPG has emerged as the most significant partner on the ground in Syria for the US-led alliance that is trying to roll back Islamic State.
Idea
Washington has ruled out the idea of partnering with President Bashar al-Assad, who last month lost the city of Palmyra in central Syria to Islamic State - the first time the jihadists seized a city directly from government control. Iraq's former premier and current vice-president, Nuri al- Maliki, blamed "conspiracies" Saturday for the loss of major cities to jihadists and said Baghdad should prioritise paramilitaries over the army to fight them. But Maliki, who was prime minister when the Islamic State jihadist group began a brutally effective offensive last year, failed to mention the role he and his government played in the debacle. "Mosul would not have fallen except for a conspiracy, and Ramadi would not have fallen except for a conspiracy," he said in televised remarks, referring to two major cities lost to IS. He blamed politicians who opposed him and said a plot to weaken the army was hatched in a neighbouring country, but did not name names. And he even said that denying the existence of a conspiracy amounts to one: "It is a conspiracy to say that there is not a conspiracy." Maliki, a Shiite, pursued policies while premier that angered and isolated Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who make up the backbone of IS' support, making it easier for the group to operate and expand. And as commander-in-chief, he sought to centralise control of the military in his office and played a significant part in its degradation, including by appointing commanders because of loyalty over skill. On Saturday, he said Iraq should give priority to paramilitaries known as Hashed al-Shaabi, or "popular mobilisation" forces, instead of the army. "Today, we must focus our effort on the Hashed al-Shaabi until we are liberated and end (IS) and free our lands, and then return to building the army," Maliki said. Last June, with security forces in disarray and IS advancing toward Baghdad, Maliki announced that the government would arm citizens who volunteered to fight.
Bombing
Meanwhile, at least 11 Iraqi security personnel were killed Saturday in a quadruple suicide car bombing near Baiji that the Islamic State group said four of its foreign fighters carried out. Police and army sources said the four car bombs were unleashed on security targets in Hajjaj, which lies on the road between Tikrit and Baiji in Salaheddin province, north of Baghdad. Seven soldiers were killed as well as four members of the Popular Mobilisation force, an umbrella for mostly Shiite militias and volunteers that has been doing much of the heavy lifting in the fight against IS in Iraq. At least 27 people were also wounded in the coordinated attack, which saw one of the four car bombs neutralised before it could reach its target, a police colonel said. An army officer said the vehicles used were identical, brand new SUVs that looked like an official convoy. Pictures released by IS show the blackclad suicide bombers each standing by one of four black Toyota Land Cruisers. IS said in a statement that the bombers were a Kuwaiti, a Palestinian, a Briton and a German.
Bomber
The picture of the German bomber, named Abu Ibrahim al-Almani, shows a red-haired blue-eyed man behind the wheel of his explosives-laden car, smiling and pointing his index finger to the sky. Ali Ahsan paced back and forth carrying a rifle more than half his height in the searing heat as his militia convoy made a pit stop in the Anbar desert to rest and pray. Unlike the rugged men in fatigues around him, his prepubescent face has barely sprung a whisker. Now that school is out, the petite 14-year-old is spending his summer break fighting the Islamic State group with his father and other members of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, which includes the Shiite militias. "I'm here because it's my duty," the stone-faced boy in blue jeans said, referring to an edict from Iraq's highest Shiite religious authority last year. "The Popular Mobilization Forces are not sectarian forces.
They represent all of Iraq, and I want to help them liberate Iraq." Despite concerns over heightened sectarian strife, Shiite militiamen continue to pour into Iraq's Sunni heartland of Anbar province with the initial hope of recapturing Fallujah, the first major Iraqi city to fall to the Islamic State group last year. As the US prepares to send an additional 450 personnel to Iraq, the Iranianbacked militias say that coalition assistance only hurts their efforts, contradicting statements by the Iraqi government that more international support is needed.
IS fighters captured Anbar's provincial capital of Ramadi last month, prompting Defense Secretary Ash Carter to lament that the US-trained Iraqi troops lacked "the will to fight." The Popular Mobilization Forces were called to battle in Anbar after the fall of Ramadi, despite concerns that their involvement in the province would antagonize the Sunni population, and they are now setting their sights on Fallujah. "We think the liberation of Fallujah will allow us to enter Ramadi without any fighting, so the battle that we are preparing is the battle of Fallujah," Hadi al- Amiri, the head of the Popular Mobilization Forces, told journalists Friday at an outpost on the Salahuddin- Anbar border. "God willing, it will be imminent." President Barack Obama's decision to expand the US force of more than 3,000 soldiers already in Iraq followed his acknowledgement earlier this week that Washington still lacks a "complete strategy" for training Iraqi forces to fight the Islamic State.
A US-led coalition has launched more than 1,900 airstrikes in Iraq since August 2014 to mixed results. Many of the Shiite fighters, including Ahsan and his uncle, Salah Mahdi, believe that airstrikes have been a hindrance to their efforts to recapture territory - and in some cases, have been deadly. "We know of Hashd al-Shaabi fighters who were killed by the American planes," Mahdi said, using the commonly known Arabic name for the Popular Mobilization Forces. "If they really wanted to help us, then they would leave Iraqis to liberate Iraq by themselves." The Popular Mobilization Forces have played a key role in several battles in the past year, but their strategy appears increasingly at odds with that of the government. While Prime Minister Haider al- Abadi continues to lobby for greater international support in the way of arms, training and aid, the Popular Mobilization Forces want the coalition to back off.
Noting the increased number of US advisers, trainers, logisticians and security personnel, al-Amiri scoffed at the notion that an additional "450 experts will be able to win the battle." "There were 150,000 American troops, thousands of tanks and mortars, and hundreds of jets, and they were unable to do anything to al-Qaeda in 2006 and 2007," al-Amiri said. While there are no official estimates for the size of the Popular Mobilization Forces, they are now believed to make up the majority of fighters in Iraq, outnumbering the official Iraqi military, which virtually crumbled in the face of the militant onslaught last year.
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