ISIS advances near Turkish border, Aleppo

ISIS se-ized a hilly area southeast of the Syrian city of Aleppo, it and monitors said on Friday, aft-er making advances near the border with Turkey that the UN said forced inhabitants to flee.

The militant jihadist group said in a statement it had gained control over Dureihem and surrounding hills about 65 km southeast of Aleppo, an area that overlooks the government-held town of Khanaser.

Syrian state media reported late Thursday that the Army had eng-aged in operations agai-nst ISIS near Khanaser, inflicting “large losses” on the insurgents.

Fighting between the Army and ISIS in the area continued as the government sought to regain control there, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that tracks Syria’s civil war, said on Friday.

Following the fighting between jihadists and the rebels, at least 30,000 civilians have fled in the past 48 hours, Human Rights Watch said, calling on Turkey to open its border to them.

The watchdog accused Turkish border guards of shooting at some of those displaced in Alep-po province by fighting between ISIS and rebels as they approached the frontier. “As civilians flee ISIS fighters, Turk-ey is responding with live ammunition inste-ad of compassion,” said HRW researcher Gerry Simpson.

The Syrian Observat-ory said that at least 210 combatants in Syria’s civil war have died in a surge in violence arou-nd the second city of Aleppo this week. Amo-ng those killed from Sunday to Thursday were 82 Army troops and pro-regime militiamen, 94 members of the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra front and allied rebel groups, and 34 ISIS jihadists, the Observatory said.