(MENAFN- Arab Times) The Islamic State group battled Syrian rebel forces in a Damascus neighbourhood on Monday, bringing the jihadists closer than ever to the centre of the capital, a monitoring group said. IS militants fought street battles against Islamist rebels in Asali, part of the capital's southern Qadam district, after seizing two streets there over the weekend, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "This is the closest IS has ever been to the heart of Damascus," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said. He said the jihadists had advanced from the adjacent Al-Hajar Al-Aswad neighbourhood, where they have been based since July 2014.
A Syrian military official confirmed the clashes and said he was "very happy that they are fighting." "But we are ready to react if they try to advance into government-held territory," the official told AFP. According to the Observatory, opposition-held Qadam has been relatively quiet since a truce between rebel groups and regime forces there a year ago.
It said fighting in the district on Sunday left 15 fighters dead, but it could not specify how many were from IS and how many were Islamist rebels. Abdel Rahman said the "fierce street battles" had forced civilians to flee the area. Since its expulsion from the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus last year, IS has used Al-Hajar Al-Aswad as a base for attacks on the capital. From there, it tried to seize the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp in April, but was pushed back.
That same month, IS kidnapped two opposition fighters from Qadam and beheaded them in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad. More than 240,000 people have been killed in Syria's conflict, which began with popular anti-government protests in March 2011 but has evolved into a complex civil war. The conflict has seen the embattled regime of President Bashar al-Assad lose swathes of territory across the country. In the northwest province of Idlib, the powerful Army of Conquest alliance edged closer to Fuaa, one of two remaining regime-held villages in the province. The Observatory said the alliance, a collection of Islamist and jihadist groups including al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate, seized the village of Sawaghiya on the southeast edge of Fuaa early Monday after overnight clashes.
The fighting left nine fighters from both sides and two civilians dead. After capturing the majority of Idlib province, the Army of Conquest surrounded and began heavily shelling the Shiite Muslim villages of Fuaa and Kafraya. This month saw two failed attempts at reaching broad ceasefire deals including Fuaa, Kafraya, and the rebel stronghold of Zabadani in Damascus province. Meanwhile, the Islamic State group strung up four Iraqi Shiite fighters with chains and burned them alive, according to footage posted online, the latest gruesome execution video from the jihadists.
The victims - identified as fighters in the pro-government Popular Mobilisation forces from southern Iraq - were suspended from a swingsetlike metal structure by chains attached to their hands and feet, then set on fire. IS, which overran large parts of Iraq last year and still controls much of the country's west, said the murders were in revenge for the alleged burning of four men by pro-government forces. "Now retribution has come, for today, we will attack them as they attacked us, and punish them as they punished us," a masked militant says in the video. The video was not dated and did not give a specific location for where the killings took place, but it did carry a tag indicating that it was produced by the IS media unit responsible for Iraq's Anbar province.
The video included a clip said to show a Sunni man suspended over a fire while still alive as pro-government forces look on, and another of famous Shiite fighter Abu Azrael ("Father of the Angel of Death") slicing a piece of flesh off a burned corpse with a sword. IS has carried out a slew of atrocities in territory it controls in Iraq and Syria, such as mass executions and a campaign of killings, kidnapping and rape targeting minorities. It has recorded many killings - including beheadings, shootings, drownings and burnings - in videos posted online. Baghdad's forces regained significant ground from the jihadists in two provinces north of the capital with support from a US-led coalition and Iran, but much of western Iraq remains outside government control.
The mayor of a remote, Islamic Stateheld town in western Iraq said on Monday that some 200 residents have been detained by the group at an unknown location following clashes there. Trouble in Rutbah, in Anbar province near the Jordanian border, started Saturday when Islamic State militants killed a local resident for killing a member of the group as part of a long-running clan blood feud. Hundreds of residents demonstrated later that day to protest the killing and clashes broke out when the militants attempted to disperse the protesters.
A provincial Anbar official said Saturday some 70 residents were detained by the militants and more than 100 more were tied to streetlight poles for about 24 hours as a punishment. Rutbah's mayor, Imad al-Rishawy, said that around 200 residents are still held by the Islamic State group at an unknown location and that the town is gripped by fears that they might be killed. Demonstrating against the Islamic State group in areas under its control had been rare since the group seized much of northern and western Iraq in the summer of 2014.
The group has zero tolerance for noncompliance with its radical interpretation of Islam or cooperation with authorities in Baghdad, routinely handing down severe punishments like beheadings, burning offenders to death or, in less serious cases, flogging or placing offenders in cages placed at public squares.
In Baghdad on Monday, roadside bombs south and west of the Iraqi capital killed four people, including two policemen, and injured 12, according to police and hospital officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The United States and its allies conducted 12 air strikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria on Sunday, the Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement on Monday. In Syria, one strike destroyed an excavator near Al Hawl, the military said. The 11 strikes in Iraq included hits on a homemade explosives cache and a resupply boat near Al Baghdadi, as well as attacks near several other towns, the statement said.
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