Opposition fighters make same claims as Isis advances towards Azaz, 20 miles from Aleppo, which would imperil their supply line into Syria’s biggest city

The US has accused the Syrian government of providing air support to an advance by Islamic State militants against opposition groups north of Aleppo.



Fighters opposing the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, have made the same claims since Sunday, when Isis began advancing towards the town of Azaz near the Turkish border.

The seizure of Azaz, 20 miles north-west of Aleppo, would imperil the main opposition supply line into Syria’s biggest city, the rebel-held east of which has been besieged by government forces for more than two years.

A post to a Twitter account used by the US embassy in Syria said late on Monday: “Reports indicate that the regime is making air strikes in support of [Isis’s] advance on Aleppo, aiding extremists against Syrian population.



“We have long seen that the regime avoids Isis lines, in complete contradiction to the regime’s claims to be fighting Isis,” the embassy said in a separate tweet.

U.S. Embassy Syria (@USEmbassySyria) Reports indicate that the regime is making air-strikes in support of #ISIL's advance on #Aleppo, aiding extremists against Syrian population

The Isis offensive, which began on Sunday, was the first launched inside Syria by the jihadist group since it was forced out of northern Aleppo 18 months ago in a six-week battle that claimed the lives of at least 1,500 opposition fighters and allowed government forces to tighten a stranglehold around the city.

Since then, loyalist forces have twice attempted and failed to completely surround Aleppo. Rebel groups, including Islamist and more mainstream factions, had consolidated supply lines north to the Turkish border after the second failed attempt in March.

Islam Alloush, a spokesman for the Islamic Front, one of the main opposition groups in northern Syria, said: “Yesterday, the regime bombed Mare’a (which was held by the opposition) exactly at the same time when Isis was attacking us, and this helped them greatly.

“It has become a matter of fact since 2013 that the Syrian regime has bombed us to stop us fighting Isis properly. Isis have never attacked Syrian planes. They owe their success to the regime.”

A second opposition leader from the Suqr al-Sham group said: “They have hit us with Grad rockets, artillery, air strikes and everything else since Sunday. They have not hit an Isis position.”

On Sunday a Syrian air force jet attacked a marketplace in the Isis-held city of al-Bab, 30 miles north-east of Aleppo, killing at least 30 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group.

Opposition groups have repeatedly pleaded for US air strikes to deter Isis from taking ground in the north. US warplanes have often attacked targets in eastern Syria, but there have been few forays around Aleppo. Strikes by the US and an Arab coalition were decisive in forcing Isis out of the Kurdish border town of Kobani in January and have been instrumental in pushing the terror group back from parts of Iraq’s Kurdish north.

However, Washington has faced persistent criticism that it lacks a uniform strategy to deal with the group, which remains in control of a vast area of land roughly the size of Jordan that straddles the border between Iraq and Syria.

The US says it is about to begin training vetted anti-Assad rebels in Syria’s north. However, more than four years into the civil war, a strong Salafi jihadi alliance has emerged from the fractured opposition to take a lead role in much of the fighting. “It will be hard now for us to fight our own battles,” said an Islamic Front member, Mahmoud Hamza.

Separately, at a meeting in Paris of members of a US-led coalition against Isis, a senior American official pledged to make it easier for the Iraqi army to get hold of new weapons to support its effort to recapture Ramadi and other lost territory.

Tony Blinken, the US deputy secretary of state, was responding to an appeal from the Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, who complained that promised military support had failed to materialise and that western sanctions made it hard for his government to buy Russian and Chinese arms.

“Armament and ammunition, we haven’t seen much. Almost none. We’re relying on ourselves, but fighting is very hard this way,” Abadi said early on Tuesday.



Blinken, who was representing the Obama administration at the Paris meeting after John Kerry, the US secretary of state, broke his leg, said that US anti-tank rockets were on the way to Iraqi forces to help them counter Isis truck bombs, and said that constraints on Iraq’s access to weapons would be lifted. “We will redouble our efforts,” Blinken said.

The anti-Isis coalition is supporting the Iraqi military effort with air strikes, drone surveillance and other intelligence.

The UK, which is carrying out air strikes and flying surveillance drones over Iraq as part of its contribution to the coalition, said in Paris that it would contribute £2m to EU-UN funding for stabilising areas recaptured from Isis.

The Paris meeting ended in a coalition statement vowing support for Abadi and his plan to win back Ramadi and other territory lost in Anbar province, including the development of an Iraqi national guard as an umbrella for the various armed groups fighting Isis.

It also said that only the formation of a new government in neighbouring Syria would “create the necessary conditions to reverse the tide of extremism and radicalism generated by the regime’s abuses”.

However, both Russia and Iran, which were not invited to the Paris meeting, restated their commitment to the Assad regime on Tuesday.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said: “It is absolutely clear to me it was a mistake – still is – not to coordinate the air strikes with the activities of the Syrian army. That’s what we believe must be done

“That is what, unfortunately, our American colleagues cannot accept for ideological considerations,” he told Bloomberg Television in an interview.

Meanwhile, Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, was quoted on the state news agency IRNA as saying: “The Iranian nation and government will remain at the side of the Syrian nation and government until the end of the road.

“Tehran has not forgotten its moral obligations to Syria and will continue to provide help and support on its own terms to the government and nation of Syria.”

