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Video Documentary: How Obama Blinked (Again and Again) Over Action Against Assad

UPDATE 1345 GMT: Local sources are reporting that a rebel attack, following a Jabhat al-Nusra vehicle bomb, has killed more than 70 Islamic State fighters in northeast Aleppo:

The attack came as rebels try to retake the town of Sawran (see below) from the militants.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Syria’s rebels have “declared war” on the Islamic State in Aleppo Province, as the militants threaten to take opposition-controlled areas between Aleppo city and the Turkish border.

Rebels and the Islamic State have been battling since January 2014. Up to last week, however, the frontlines had settled in northeast Aleppo Province, with the rebel coalition Jaish al-Fatah concentrating on victories over the Assad regime in neighboring Idlib Province.

However, with the rebel success raising the prospect of a push on regime-controlled areas in Aleppo Province, including parts of Aleppo city — and with the Islamic State making its own advance with the capture of Palmyra in central Syria — the militants stepped up attacks on a 25-km front north and northeast of Aleppo city.

The Islamic State captured the town of Sawran and two villages on Sunday. It appears to be closing on the town of Azaz and the nearby border post with Turkey.

Claimed footage of Islamic State fighters in Sawran:

On Sunday, the Fatah Haleb operations room put out a statement promising a counter-offensive. Videos showed opposition fighters moving to the front, while Captain Islam Alloush of the Iaish al-Islam faction said on Twitter that rebel successes against the Islamic State near Damascus would be repeated in the north:

A Jaish al-Islam convoy heading to Aleppo Province:

The rebel coalition is already trying to regain Sawran:

Rebels preparing for battle:

The weekend’s development seem to shift the three-sided war in Aleppo. Last week, the Islamic State and Assad regime had also been fighting. The militants threatened the Sheikh Najjar industrial area, east of Aleppo city, while the Syrian air force struck the Islamic State-controlled town of al-Bab, northeast of the city, and killed at least 51 people on Saturday.

However, the turn in the last 24 hours has raised rebel suspicions that the Islamic State and regime — who have also been fighting in eastern Syria, as well as near Palmyra in Homs Province — have reached a de facto arrangement in Aleppo. For now, they will refrain from attacking each other, allowing the militants to press their offensive against the rebels.

Meanwhile, the Syrian air force bombed rebel-held Mare’, near the frontline with the Islamic State — rescuers pull a child from the rubble:

Rebels are also challenging the US-led coalition, which has bombed the Islamic State since last September in other areas of northern Syria, notably in support of Syrian Kurdish forces. The rebels are asking why, if the US is committed to the defeat of the Islamic State, it is not providing similar aerial support in Aleppo.

Abo Abdo Salabman, a fighter with a brigade in the area, said on Sunday:

[The Islamic State] is heading to the Turkish border….If this happens I don’t know who will be able to explain why the coalition is not bombing [them].

It’s one thing that they don’t bomb the regime because of some international circumstances they need to take into account. However, failure to bomb ISIS on that particular front is not going to go down well with the rebels.

Video: Regime Airstrikes Target Drinking Water Supplies in South

Activists report that regime helicopters have targeted a pumping facility that supplies drinking water to Daraa and Horan in southern Syria:

Assad forces are also allegedly burning crops throughout the country to deprive rebel-held areas of supplies and revenue.

Islamic State Renews Attack on Regime in Hasakah City

The Islamic State has resumed its attack on regime forces in and near Hasakah city in northeast Syria.

The militants fired shells and rockets into the city center and attacked the Syrian Army and militia in the villages of Al-Dawoudiyah and Rad Shaqra. Islamic State fighters took over part of the Al-Ahdath Central Prison near al-Dawoudiyah, 5 km (3 miles) from Hasakah.

The Islamic State was close to a major roundabout in southern Hasakah before Syrian reinforcements pushed them back, according to pro-Assad outlets.

The militants have closed on Hasakah over the past week, twice launching attacks into the provincial capital.

Is US “Train-and-Equip” Program for Rebels a Non-Starter Because Of Focus on Islamic State?

A leading member of Syria’s Revolutionary Command Council has indicated that the headline US program to train and equip rebels may never get started because of Washington’s insistence that it be directed against the Islamic State.

“We submitted the names of 1,000 fighters for the program, but then we got this request to promise not to use any of our training against Assad,” Mustapha Sejari said:

It was a Department of Defense liaison officer who relayed this condition to us orally, saying we’d have to sign a form. He told us, “We got this money from Congress for a program to fight ISIS only.” This reason was not convincing for me. So we said no.

Sejari, who been involved in the joint operations room in Turkey, said, “[My men] don’t want to be beholden to this policy because it can be used against them in Syria — that they’ve betrayed the revolution and now they’re just mercenaries for the coalition forces.”

Iran: “Syria is at Forefront of Resistance Against Israel”

Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has reiterated the Islamic Republic’s support for the Assad regime, saying Syria is at the forefront of resistance against Israel.

Larijani was hosting his Syrian counterpart Mohammad Jihad al-Laham in Tehran on Monday.

The Iranian Speaker said Syrian people have managed through their steadfastness to foil plots hatched by “adventurous” terrorists, and he expressed hope that “the Syrian nation will emerge victorious”.

Video: Deadly Regime Barrel-Bombing Continues in Aleppo Province

The Syrian air force, having killed scores of people in Aleppo Province on Saturday — some reports said up to 130 dead — continued its attacks on Sunday.

Footage of a strike on the rebel-held Sukkari area of Aleppo city:

The Local Coordination Committees report 28 confirmed deaths in and near Aleppo on Sunday.

Assyrians Criticize Lack of US Support Against the Islamic State in Northeast

The Assyrian Military Council, allied with Kurdish forces in the battle against the Islamic State in northeast Syria, has criticized lack of US support.

Malkay Rabo, the Council’s official spokesman, said strikes in the town of Tel Temir “haven’t achieve any success yet” and asserted that the coalition is “not serious in their efforts to deter the IS group in Tel Temir and its surrounding Assyrian villages”.

The Islamic State has attacked Tel Temir in Hasakah Province for more than a month, following a militant offensive early this year which took Assyrian villages and forced thousands to flee to Hasakah city.

Kurdish and Assyrian forces have counter-attacked along the Euphrates River and to the west, reclaiming territory and hoping to link the Kurdish canton of Cezire and Kobane.

The US military said on Sunday that it had carried out four airstrikes in northeast Syria over the weekend.

Rabo challenged:

The coalition has offered a limited support to the defending forces of Tel Temir through few anti-IS airstrikes, but we consider the efforts so far as merely for media coverage matters no more. The coalition hasn’t directly hit the ranks of the radical group in our area….

Cooperation with the coalition’s air force does not give us any positive result.

“The only forces available in the Hasakah province are the Assyrian Military Council, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Asayish, Suturo and Haras al-Khaboor,” he said, adding that these factions have formed a unified force “in order to confront the barbarism of the IS extremist group in the region”.