BEIRUT: Syrian pro-regime forces advanced Monday toward Al-Bab, completing the encirclement of the Daesh-held town which had been partially besieged by Turkey-backed opposition forces, state media and an activist group said.
Turkish troops and allied Syrian opposition fighters, known as Euphrates Shield, have been trying to seize the town for weeks in fighting that has killed dozens of Turkish troops. The Syrian regime and the Turkish-backed forces are not coordinating their operations.
The Syrian regime condemned the incursion when Turkish troops crossed the border in August. But since then Turkey has joined with Russia and Iran to guarantee a cease-fire between the government and Syrian opposition fighters.
Both forces appear to be in a race to enter Al-Bab, which lies at a strategic crossroads in northern Syria.
Turkey, which for years supported the Syrian opposition battling to overthrow President Bashar Assad, has recalibrated its priorities toward fighting Daesh militants and thwarting Kurdish aspirations for autonomous rule along Syria’s border with Turkey.
Capturing Al-Bab, one of the Daesh group’s biggest strongholds in northern Syria, would allow the Turkish forces to prevent the Kurds from linking their enclaves in the west and east.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, said Monday that Syrian troops captured the Eweisheh hill, cutting Al-Bab off from other areas under Daesh control. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that the extremists were under siege.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said the Syrian troops were backed by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to bolster Assad’s forces.
The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said troops are pushing north and have severed Daesh supply lines.
Meanwhile, Daesh is militarily on the defensive, facing a drop in revenue from oil and extortion and a shrinking ability to attract new recruits, according to a new UN report released Monday.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned however in the report to the Security Council that Daesh terrorists continue to pose a grave threat and are “partially adapting” to losses on the battlefield.
“Daesh is militarily on the defensive in several regions, notably in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and the Syrian Arab Republic,” said the report sent to the council on Thursday.
Daesh finances are on a decline, forcing the militant group to operate on a “crisis budget,” it added.
Illicit oil sales, mainly from oil fields in Syria’s Deir Ezzor province, dropped from as much as $500 million in 2015 to $260 million last year.