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News > World

Kurds Strike Heart of Islamic State Group Territory

  • The YPG/YPJ have scored their second major victory over the Islamic State group in the past week.

    The YPG/YPJ have scored their second major victory over the Islamic State group in the past week. | Photo: YPG Media / Handout

Published 23 June 2015
Opinion

The YPG/YPJ seized a military base overlooking a major supply route to the city of Raqqa.

Kurdish fighters have seized a key military base near the Islamic State group's de facto capital Raqqa, Kurdish groups said Monday.

The Liwa 93 military base was wrested from the Islamic State group by the Kurdish YPG militia and its women's brigade, the YPJ. The assault was reportedly also backed up by a handful of smaller rebel groups, along with U.S.-led airstrikes.

The base itself is just 7 kilometers from the town of Ain Issa, which lies 50 kilometers from the heart of the Islamic State group's self-declared caliphate, the city of Raqqa.

"The Kurds also entered the outskirts of the town of Ayn Issa, close to (Liwa) Brigade 93 ... this town has basically fallen in the military sense with the capture of the base," Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated, according to Reuters.

“This means that the Islamic State keeps collapsing inside its own stronghold,” he added.

Liwa 93 holds a strategic position overlooking a major thoroughfare connecting Raqqa to a handful of its outlying military outposts. Without the base, the Islamic State group's efforts to resupply some of its outposts in the area could be hamstrung.

The capture of Liwa 93 is the second major Kurdish victory over the Islamic State group in the past week.

Last Monday the YPG announced it had taken control of the border town of Tal Abyad from the Islamic State group. Sitting near the frontier with Turkey, the town has been another major supply route for militants. The capture of the town also meant a number of Kurdish enclaves straddling the Turkish border had become logistically linked – a significant step forward for the YPG's political ambitions.

RELATED: The Rojava Revolution and the Liberation of Kobani

The YPG aims to carve out political autonomy for regions in Syria's north, where the population is predominantly Kurdish. Unlike most other militias in Syria's civil war, the YPG claims to be fiercely democratic and supporters of women’s rights. Officers are purportedly democratically elected and the YPJ has been hailed by Kurdish leaders for its central role in the defeat of the Islamic State group in January after the months-long battle over the Syrian border town of& Kobani.

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