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ISIS continued its campaign for the Euphrates following the fall of Ramadi and Palmyra. In Anbar ISIS seized the Iraqi side of the Tanf/Waleed border crossing with Syria, having captured the Syrian side on May 22. ISIS has mounted complex, coordinated attacks involving multiple VBIEDs against ISF-controlled Haditha and Baghdadi, near al-Asad Airbase, thereby challenging an ISF advance on Ramadi from the west.
ISIS seized the Tanf border crossing between Iraq and Syria, circled in the map above. The status of the Walid border crossing on the Iraq side is still unknown and assessed to be contested.
ISIS is attacking Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) positions near and far from Ramadi preemptively to compromise potential ISF counter-offensives against ISIS’s positions in Ramadi, still vulnerable while ISIS is consolidating its power there.
As we approach the one-year anniversary of ISIS’s capture of Mosul and declaration of a caliphate, it appears that the organization is more robust than ever. ISIS is expanding its operations, and exploiting state tensions across the Middle East in order to accelerate disorder and gain power.
ISIS seized the last regime-controlled border crossing between Syria and Iraq with the capture of the al-Tanf crossing on May 22 following a regime withdrawal.
ISIS seized the last regime-controlled border crossing between Syria and Iraq with the capture of the al-Tanf crossing on May 22 following a regime withdrawal.
ISIS seized the Tanf border crossing between Iraq and Syria, circled in the map above. The status of the Walid border crossing on the Iraq side is still unknown and assessed to be contested.
Russian-backed separatists broadened their offensive operations along the frontline in Donbas ahead of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s trip to the EU Eastern Partnership summit in Riga, Latvia.
ISIS seized the regime-held town of al-Sukna west of Deir ez-Zour City on May 14 and then seized the regime stronghold of Palmyra on May 20 after regime forces reportedly executed a full withdrawal from the city, prison, and military airbase.
ISIS seized the regime-held town of al-Sukna west of Deir ez-Zour City on May 14, severing the regime’s ground line of communication from Palmyra in the central Homs Desert to Deir ez-Zour City and effectively isolating remaining regime positions in western Deir ez-Zour.