Turkish and Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces are potentially hours away from completely cutting off the Islamic State’s access to the Turkish border, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
ISIS appeared to have ceded control of its last two villages along the Turkish border Sunday, a spokesman for SOHR told the Independent.
“Everything is finished. There is no more ISIS at the border,” said Rami Abdulrahman, a spokesman for the human rights organization.
ISIS put up no fight as Turkish tanks rolled into the last remaining villages, according to Abdulrahman. The fast-paced siege by Turkey and the FSA appears to have been too much for ISIS fighters to repel, forcing them to retreat further into the so-called caliphate and away from the border.
“We said after they lost Manbij, Isis would start to lose everywhere. Sure enough, when the Turkish forces went into Jarablus that was not really fighting, there was no one killed from either side,” said Abdulrahman.
Turkey and its FSA allies engaged in a pincer move against ISIS forces over the weekend, with Turkish armor moving in from the west into the Syrian border town of al-Rai, while FSA forces pushed from the east.
The maneuver cuts off ISIS’s access to the Turkish border, which has served as the terrorist group’s main recruiting artery and smuggling supply route.
“It will be a few hours, and then Isis will be cut off from the rest of the world,” SOHR told the Independent.
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