GAZIANTEP
Militant group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has never opened a front or fought against Syria's regime forces in any part of the country, according to a former officer of the Syrian army.
After 42 years of service in the Syrian Air Forces, Air Commodore Muntasir Cavus joined the opposition ranks following the outbreak of the civil war in the country and took the helm of the 1st Fatih Division alongside the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is based in the Turkmen town of Cobanbey in Aleppo.
In an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency, the Syrian Turkmen commander stated that ISIL militias launched a suicide attack to capture the strategic town of Cobanbey on the Turkey-Syria border on Monday. This was to ease trasportation and the coordination of ISIL forces in and around the recently seized towns of Mumbuc, Cerablus, Bab and Azez which are close to Aleppo.
Noting that they had already known of the attack on Cobanbey, Cavus said they made preparations to repel the attack by forming a line of defense named "Northern Syria Revolutionary Youth" to fight along with the Tawhid Brigade and Fatih Division in Cobanbey.
"We destroyed a ISIL military convoy near the Ayyashah village heading towards Cobanbey to capture it. Following the suicide attack, Cobanbey came under fire from over a hundred ISIL militias. Four of our commanders fell martyr in the attack and then we had to withdraw our troops from Cobanbey. The 11 ISIL militants we were holding captive, including the Chechen-origin commander Omar Hattab also escaped after the suicide attack" he said.
Cavus added that the opposition Turkmen forces are now deployed five kilometers off Cobanbey to maintain control of the town.
The Syrian Turkmen commander asserted that ISIL has made great contributions to the Assad regime through its attacks on opposition forces.
"ISIL is the epitome of the [Assad] regime. Their job is to capture the liberated areas and war against the FSA," he said.
He suggested that ISIL aimed at capturing the trade and aid routes in the region, as well as seizing control of the border gates and all strategic points between Turkey and Syria, and put the FSA in the cross-fire.
"ISIL blocks the flow of humanitarian aid into the country"
The commander of the 1st Fatih Division underscored that ISIL is also blocking, at times, the flow of humanitarian aid into the civil war-racked the country.
Cavus claimed that ISIL will try to occupy all of the northern Syrian "strip" lying on the border with Turkey and to hand it over to the Assad regime.
He said the 1st Fatih Division would fight back against both ISIL and Syria's regime's forces so as not to give up the liberated areas to them. "ISIL is not that much permanent in these teritories; it cannot close the border or stay there."
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