islamic-state-captures-syrian-towns-key-oil-field

Robert Spencer Jul 4, 2014 at 9:09am Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Syria 0 Comments

While Muslim leaders ridicule the Islamic State’s pretensions to constitute the restoration of the caliphate, the Islamic State continues to expand and consolidate its power. Ultimately, that is how the question of its legitimacy will be decided: if it can establish and maintain a viable state, increasing numbers of Muslims will accept its claims.

“ISIS Captures Syrian Towns, Key Oil Field,” by Barbara Surk, Associated Press, July 3, 2014:

BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant marched across eastern Syria near the border with Iraq on Thursday, seizing towns, villages and the country’s largest oil field as rival rebel factions gave up the fight, activists said.
The extremist group — which controls large parts of northern Syria and captured vast swaths of northern and western Iraq last month — is now in almost full control of a corridor stretching from the Syrian border town of Boukamal to the government-controlled provincial capital of Deir el-Zour to the northwest.
Led by an ambitious Iraqi militant known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant this week unilaterally declared the establishment of an Islamic state, or caliphate, in the lands it has seized in Syria and Iraq. It proclaimed al-Baghdadi the head of its new self-styled state and demanded that all Muslims pledge allegiance to him.
The new developments effectively expand and consolidate areas held by the group — which has shorted its name to the Islamic State — in territory straddling the border between the two conflict-ridden countries.
The majority of significant Syrian rebel groups that have been fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad have rejected Baghdadi’s declaration. The rebel groups, including the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, have fought the extremist group since the beginning of the year. Nearly 7,000 people, mostly fighters, have died in the infighting.
However, Nusra Front appears to be losing the war within a war in Syria as fighters allied with powerful tribes in eastern Syria defect to al-Baghdadi’s group.
On Thursday, a video posted online by activists showed a man in the town of Sheheil, a Nusra Front stronghold, reading a statement, saying: “We have decided to declare our allegiance to the Islamic State and the Caliph of the Muslims, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”
Another video showed what appeared to be fighters in the nearby Ishara village announcing that they were ceasing their fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
“The clans of the city of Ishara, and the villages around it … and all of the factions in these areas … announce before God that they will cease fighting with the Islamic State,” a man says, reading from a statement as he stands in a courtyard with several other tribal elders. The videos appeared to be genuine and matched AP reporting from the area.
The Deir el-Zour Coordination Committees, a collective of activists in the area, confirmed that militants had entered the town of Mayadeen and Ishara after other rebel fighters withdrew.
Rami Abdurrahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said some Nusra fighters were still clashing with their rivals at the outskirts of Sheheil Thursday, but added that the al-Qaida-linked group appears close to collapse.
Nusra fighters, who have controlled Syria’s largest oil field, al-Omar, since late last year, abandoned the facility Thursday without firing a bullet, the Observatory said….