ISTANBUL – Fighters from the Nusra Front, Al-Qaida's official affiliate in Syria, on Tuesday seized three strategic towns on the border with Turkey in a major blow to U.S.-backed moderate rebels.
Nusra's seizure of Izmarin, Salkin and Harem in Syria's Idlib Province came only four days after the group seized Darkoush, another border town, from the Syrian Revolutionary Front, a moderate group that is part of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army.
The move appears to be part of an effort by Nusra to add new area to what it has called its emirate in northern Syria — a designation the Al-Qaida affiliate made in response to the declaration in June of an Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria by its archrival, the Islamic State. Since the Islamic State's designation of its caliphate, Nusra has lost territory to the Islamic State. Many of Nusra's best known commanders also have defected to the Islamic State.
Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said he believed the capture of the towns was Nusra's effort to build a contiguous area that would be declared its Islamic state.
"It's clear from the clashes in the area, there is a project," Abdurrahman told the Associated Press. "They are seizing towns and areas to be connected geographically."
Anti-government activists in the towns said Free Syrian Army fighters surrendered without a fight, with some abandoning their weapons and fleeing into Turkey. In Harem, Nusra forces captured 20 fighters but let them go home after taking their weapons.
The Syrian Revolutionary Front acknowledged Nusra's capture of the town in a statement, one in which it accused the Al-Qaida group of killing people and looting property. The statement also accused Nusra of withdrawing from key positions in Aleppo, where rebels are facing an offensive by Syrian government forces.
The statement accused Nusra of undertaking "a war for the sake of splitting Syria into caliphates, emirates and states hostile to one another" but did not promise an immediate effort to retake the towns.
"Our patience is not out of weakness," the statement said.
Earlier, Nusra said fighters had "erected checkpoints on public roads and took taxes from people and abused them." It said its capture of the towns was part of a campaign to end "sins" that were taking hold in the area, "such as drinking alcohol," and it warned against groups serving American interests.
Mahmud al-Akal, one of the leaders in the revolutionary front, said that the group's leaders had ordered its units to withdraw because they were not equipped to fight the heavily armed Nusra Front. "Nusra wants to … establish its emirate in a haven away from the reach of the regime," he said.
