Islamic State surges forces toward Turkey

Observer/Guardian:

Islamic State extremists are pushing to secure the border between Turkeyand north-western Syria as the main gateway for recruits to join the caliphate they have imposed across much of eastern Syria and western Iraq.

Large numbers of jihadists from Islamic State (formerly Isis) are moving this weekend towards the Turkish border area, about 60 miles north of Aleppo, in columns of armoured trucks that they looted from abandoned Iraqi military bases. The area is now one of the most active front lines in the group's attempt to redraw the borders of the Levant, a campaign that will have huge ramifications for Turkey.

Residents and Syrian opposition militants in the town of Marea, close to the Turkish border, on Saturday said that Isis had advanced to within sight of the town and had sent envoys to negotiate access.

"They could storm in like the Mongols, if they wanted to," said a fighter from Syrian rebel group Islamic Front. "But they're trying to be nice. We have dealt with them before. There is no reconciling with them. We will have to fight."

The Syrian opposition fought a bitter and costly war with Isis in the same area in January, ousting them from ground they had used as a rallying point for foreign fighters and for a successful push into Iraq. The six-week battle cost the lives of more than 2,500 opposition fighters and allowed the Syrian regime, together with its proxies, to slowly encircle Aleppo from the north-west, a move which is likely to prove decisive in the Syrian civil war.

Since that battle, the flow of foreign fighters from across the Turkish border to Isis has slowed. Isis now wants to reverse that, making it easier for anyone who wants to join them to cross a 130-mile strip of the frontier that has been used by the vast majority of foreign fighters, including British and European jihadists.
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There is more at the link above.

This looks like an opportunity to have a strategic effect on the ISIL supply lines and their recruiting operations.  We should be bombing that convoy now.   So far this administration has shown little strategic thinking in dealing with the enemy threat.  We should be destroying all their mechanized operations and blocking their movement to contact.  The other Syrian resistance forces are ones we have supposedly been arming so we could work with them as the boots on the ground force in the area.

The Brits are putting pressure on Turkey to stop the flow of terrorist through their territory.  If the US is going to be supplying Turkey with weapons it should use some of them to stop the terrorist and supplies from going to ISIL.