AL Jazeera.com :
Hundreds of people have fled from Syria into Turkey as moderate fighters and Kurdish forces battle the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group holding the Syrian border town of Tel Abyad.
Activists on the Turkish border said that Turkish authorities allowed Syrian refugees in Raqqa province to cross into Turkey on Wednesday after another group of hundreds crossed over to Turkey on June 4.
Since last week, thousands of civilians from northern Raqqa countryside have fled their homes and gathered on the Turkish border because of the ongoing clashes in the area. Most of refugees sleep in deserted houses or public utility in the Turkish border town of Akcakale in Sanliurfa province because Syrian refugees camps in Turkey cannot accommodate more refugees, according to activists.
A Turkish official said 2,000 refugees were being registered on Wednesday after more than 6,800 were admitted in the area last week, the Reuters news agency said.
He said they were fleeing advances by Kurdish YPG forces as well as aerial bombardment by the US and Arab allies trying to help the Kurds push back ISIL.
The northeastern corner of Syria is important to ISIL because it links areas under its control in Syria and Iraq.
Also on Thursday, an activist group and a Syrian opposition faction said that al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front, killed at least 20 Druze after a confrontation in the northwestern Idlib province.
The killings reportedly occurred on Wednesday in the Druze village of Qalb Lawzeh in the Jabal al-Summaq region, where Nusra Front fighters have dug up historic graves and destroyed shrines in recent months.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the shooting occurred after the Nusra Front tried to confiscate the home of a Druze government official in the village. It said fighters shot one villager dead, prompting another villager to grab one of the fighters’ rifles and kill a member of the jihadi group. The Observatory said the fighters later brought reinforcements and opened fire, killing 20 residents.
ISIL last week launched an offensive on Hasakah city, the capital of Hasakah province, which is divided into zones run separately by the government of President Bashar al-Assad and a Kurdish administration.
Hundreds of people have fled from Syria into Turkey as moderate fighters and Kurdish forces battle the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group holding the Syrian border town of Tel Abyad.
Activists on the Turkish border said that Turkish authorities allowed Syrian refugees in Raqqa province to cross into Turkey on Wednesday after another group of hundreds crossed over to Turkey on June 4.
Since last week, thousands of civilians from northern Raqqa countryside have fled their homes and gathered on the Turkish border because of the ongoing clashes in the area. Most of refugees sleep in deserted houses or public utility in the Turkish border town of Akcakale in Sanliurfa province because Syrian refugees camps in Turkey cannot accommodate more refugees, according to activists.
A Turkish official said 2,000 refugees were being registered on Wednesday after more than 6,800 were admitted in the area last week, the Reuters news agency said.
He said they were fleeing advances by Kurdish YPG forces as well as aerial bombardment by the US and Arab allies trying to help the Kurds push back ISIL.
The northeastern corner of Syria is important to ISIL because it links areas under its control in Syria and Iraq.
Also on Thursday, an activist group and a Syrian opposition faction said that al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front, killed at least 20 Druze after a confrontation in the northwestern Idlib province.
The killings reportedly occurred on Wednesday in the Druze village of Qalb Lawzeh in the Jabal al-Summaq region, where Nusra Front fighters have dug up historic graves and destroyed shrines in recent months.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the shooting occurred after the Nusra Front tried to confiscate the home of a Druze government official in the village. It said fighters shot one villager dead, prompting another villager to grab one of the fighters’ rifles and kill a member of the jihadi group. The Observatory said the fighters later brought reinforcements and opened fire, killing 20 residents.
ISIL last week launched an offensive on Hasakah city, the capital of Hasakah province, which is divided into zones run separately by the government of President Bashar al-Assad and a Kurdish administration.
