Jabhat al-Nusra Storm Government Building in Idlib, Northwest Syria

Jabhat al-Nusra fighters stormed a government building and claim to have cut the supply route to the northwest Idlib province, the Guardian reports. Monday’s attacks were an apparent bid to extend the group’s reach to the government-controlled capital of Idlib province; the group had previously seized multiple villages and towns in the province over two years.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Jabhat al-Nusra and other groups shelled Idlib and simultaneously attacked army checkpoints. The militants briefly seized a governorate building and killed several soldiers before they withdrew.

The group has advanced in northern and eastern Syria in the past three months, adding to its gains in the southern provinces of Deraa and Quneitra.

The regime has lost much of northern and eastern Syria but has secured a stretch of land from the capital, Damascus, in the southwest up towards Aleppo in the northwest, Reuters reports

The Battle for Aleppo Intensifies with Syrian Rebels Vulnerable to ISIS and the Regime

The Daily Beast profiled the intensifying battle for Aleppo, a city that is now besieged on three sides by the Assad regime and by ISIS on the other. Aleppo has been divided since a rebel offensive in the summer of 2012, splitting the city between the regime on its west side and rebel-held territory on the east.

According to the report, regime forces are “close to cutting the one remaining land route into Aleppo used by mainly Sunni rebels to resupply their forces, ferry in reinforcements, and evacuate their wounded.” On Saturday, fierce clashes broke out between regime forces and rebels as they tried to secure the supply line to Aleppo.

A defeat in Aleppo would have heavy consequences for Syrian rebels: some of the same groups the U.S. wants to train and arm to fight ISIS.

Earlier this month, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that government troops backed by forces from Hezbollah had taken Handarat, just north of Aleppo. Control of the hill would bring rebel areas of Aleppo city under total siege by regime forces.

Commanders from the Free Syrian Army have called on the U.S. to launch airstrikes to stop the advance of regime forces, fearing that without it, many of their troops will be lured into joining ISIS out of sheer desperation.

Rebel commanders argue that a siege of Aleppo carries even greater ramifications than Kobani, “not only for the Obama administration’s objective to ‘degrade and defeat’ ISIS, but also for the course of the uprising against President Assad,” according to the Daily Beast.

Turkish Official Say Peshmerga Fighters Are Clear to Go to Kobani Through Turkey

A Turkish official said that Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters were free to move through Turkey to Syria “as soon as they are ready,” Reuters reports.

The remarks came after Saleh Muslim, co-chair of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), accused Turkey of stalling on an agreement to allow the fighters passage to the besieged town of Kobani.

Facing pressure to join the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last Wednesday that Iraqi peshmeraga fighters would be allowed to cross through his country to fight in Kobani.

Last week the Iraqi Kurdish Region’s parliament voted in favor of deploying some of its peshmerga forces to Kobani. Some 155 peshmerga fighters were expected to go to Turkey as soon as a timetable had been finalized with with Ankara and Kurds in Syria.

In parallel, Syrian state media claims that Damascus has provided military support to Kurdish fighters to help them battle ISIS. The move would suggest that President Bashar al-Assad and Western powers are potentially supporting the same forces against ISIS.

Syria’s Main Kurdish party dismissed the report as propaganda, saying they do not cooperate with the Damascus government.

ISIS Releases Video Showing British Hostage Near Kobani

A new video released by ISIS of British hostage John Cantile was released yesterday, showing the photojournalist in the Syrian border town of Kobani, CNN reports.

In the video, Cantile says that Kobani is mostly under the control of ISIS and “that the all-out battle for the city is over.” Cantile also describes weapons from a U.S. air drop sent to aid Kurdish fighters in Kobani last week that fell into the hands of ISIS.

The video posted online is the second one to be released by ISIS showing Cantile. The clip also features footage that it is claimed was shot by an Islamic State drone, according to the BBC. The first ISIS video depicting Cantile features him reading an apparently scripted message criticizing the U.S. and U.K. for their position on hostage negotiations.

Cantile was kidnapped in 2012, along with U.S. journalist James Foley. Since August, ISIS has filmed and posted the deaths of U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, British aid worker David Haines and Alan Henning, a volunteer aid worker.

Recommended Reads

• New York Times: [Sectarian Wedge Pushes from Syria into Lebanon14

• Reuters: U.S. Sees Syria Rebels in Political, Not Military Solution

• CNN: ‘At Peace’ in War: A Former U.S. Soldier Battles ISIS

• Wall Street Journal: Moderate Syrian Rebels Plead for More Western Help

• Washington Post: The Death Toll in U.S. Airstrikes in Syria Broken Down

• Reuters: Assad’s Warnings Start to Ring True in Turkey

• AP: Syria: Verdict in Doctor’s Death

• AP: Syria’s 3 ½-year Conflict Roiling the Economy

• The Atlantic: The Syrian Civil War, Turned into a Game