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| Iraq |
| Iraq militants take Syria-border post in drive for caliphate |
| 2014-06-22 |
| Militants seized a border post on the Iraq-Syria frontier, security sources said on Saturday, smashing a line drawn by colonial powers almost a century ago and potentially creating a caliphate from the Mediterranean Sea to Iran. The militants, led by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), first moved into the nearby town of Al Qaim on Friday, pushing out security forces, the sources said. Once border guards heard that Al Qaim had fallen, they left their posts and militants moved in, the sources said. Sameer Al Shwiali, media adviser to the commander of Iraq’s anti-terrorist squad, told Reuters that the Iraqi army was still in control of Al Qaim. Al Qaim and its neighbouring Syrian counterpart Albukamal are on a strategic supply route. A three-year civil war in Syria has left most of eastern Syria in the hands of militants, including the Albukamal Qaim crossing. The Albukamal gate is run by Al Qaeda’s official Syria branch, the Nusra Front, which has clashed with ISIL but has also agreed to localised truces when it suits both sides. The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, Rami Abdulrahman, said ISIL has pushed the Nusra Front out from many areas of eastern Syria in the past few days and their capture of Al Qaim will allow them to quickly move to the Syrian side. ISIL already controls territory around the Abukamal gate, effectively pinching the Nusra Front between its forces in Syria and those in neighbouring Iraq, said Abdulrahman, who tracks the violence. |
| Posted by:Steve White |