LATEST: Obama Condemns “Pure Evil” of Islamic State’s Beheading of Peter Abdul-Rahman Kassig

A series of insurgent victories in southern Syria this month, continuing an advance from the Israeli border across to the main highway between Damascus and the Jordanian frontier, is raising the question of whether the opposition can cut off the capital from the south.

Among the successes are the capture of Sheikh Maskin, near the route from Damascus to Daraa city, and establishing control and repelling a regime offensive in Nawa.

This weekend insurgents moved into Dilli (see map), just north of Sheikh Maskin, and began attacks on the regime’s Brigade 82 base.

Can the opposition move further north, taking more territory in the direction of Western Ghouta — which would put it on the doorstep of Damascus from the south? And can the insurgency hold out, after months of regime assaults, in Eastern Ghouta and in the northeast of Damascus?

The answers to those questions may not be imminent, but they raise the prospect of the insurgency re-establishing a ring of control from where they can again launch attacks into the capital from more than one front.

The regime had relieved some of the pressure on Damascus, with insurgents frequently launching mortar attacks, in the past year with military operations and local ceasefires — often following the “surrender or starve” approach of protracted sieges — in areas of Western and Eastern Ghouta.

Insurgents in Dilli:

Fighters on the hilltop of Tel Arad (see map), further to the west:

Outside the Brigade 82 base (” target=”_blank”>see map):

Obama Condemns “Pure Evil” of Islamic State’s Beheading of Peter Abdul-Rahman Kassig

President Obama has condemned Sunday’s beheading of US aid worker Peter Abdul-Rahman Kassig by the Islamic State in northern Syria, “Abdul-Rahman was taken from us in an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity.”

Obama offered condolences to Kassig’s family as he spoke at the end of a week-long tour of Asia and Australia.

The aid worker and former US Ranger was beheaded along with 18 Syrian troops, with the Islamic State publicizing the executions in a video posted online.

See Syria Feature: Islamic State Beheads US Hostage Peter Kassig & Syrian Troops