FSA hit back at ISIS in east Syria province
Baku, November 19 AZERTAC
Members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) expelled fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from parts of the eastern city of Al Bukamal near the border with Iraq, sources told Al Arabiya News Channel Saturday.
The FSA, which is also seeking the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad, had launched a large campaign to clear the mainly ISIS-held city of the militant fighters.
FSA reinforcements were dispatched at dawn Saturday as part of the campaign.
Earlier this week ISIS fighters appeared to be consolidating their hold over Al Bukamal when the local leader of the rival Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda's official branch in Syria, pledged allegiance to them.
ISIS is a more radical offshoot of Al-Qaeda that has its roots in Iraq and expanded into Syria shortly after the start of the three-year insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad.
It controls much of Syria's eastern oil-producing Euphrates River region, and its lightning gains in Iraq's Sunni Muslim northern and western provinces over the last three weeks means ISIL now commands a large cross-border expanse of territory - in which Al Bukamal forms an important link.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, reported heavy fighting overnight and into Saturday in the town between ISIS-aligned forces and rival Islamists, who include Nusra Front fighters from outside the town who had not sided with ISIS.
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