IS and opposition groups clash in rural Aleppo

The Islamic State (IS) group has captured a strategic village in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, which lies along a supply line for opposition fighters that extends into Turkey.

Umm Housh, one of the four villages that are located on the supply line, and its surrounding areas connects Aleppo to the border town of al-Ra’i.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 37 opposition fighters and 10 IS militants were killed in the battle for Umm Housh.

Media activists reported that the opposition armed groups were forced to retreat from the village as IS deployed car bombs and suicide attacks to wrest control.

IS’s advance into Umm Housh has dealt a blow to opposition fighters, and led to a division in their control of areas in rural Aleppo. To the north of the village, which is now under control of IS, lies the infantry military school which was the largest concentration point for opposition fighters in Aleppo’s countryside.

Amid talk of a planned major military operation against IS by the opposition groups backed with Turkish air cover, the al-Nusra Front group withdrew from rural Aleppo, citing its refusal to take part.

"We in the Nusra front do not see it as legitimate to enter this alliance against IS,” the group said in a statement, “as it is not based on a strategic choice undertaken by the opposition groups, but stems from Turkey’s national and security interests.”

A further 25 Syrian opposition fighters were killed overnight by IS in the rebel bastion of Marea, another town that lies on the supply line that links Aleppo to Turkey.

Fighting lasted until dawn on Tuesday, in which eight IS fighters were killed including “four suicide bombers who blew themselves up with explosive belts,” said the Observatory.

Mamun al-Khatib, director of Shahba, an Aleppo-based activist news network, said in a Facebook post that “an IS cell infiltrated the town of Marea and its fighters bombed and fired upon civilians”.

Opposition fighters surrounded the IS militants, prompting them to blow themselves up, Khatib added.

Almost a quarter of a million people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with anti-government demonstrations in March 2011.