IS storms Palestinian refugee camp

DAMASCUS: The Islamic State group stormed the Yarmuk refugee camp in southern Damascus on Wednesday, capturing large parts of the Palestinian haven and demonstrating its ability to attack Syria’s capital for the first time.
IS militants entered the camp in a lightning assault, said Anwar Abdel Hadi, political affairs director at the Palestine Liberation Organisation in Damascus.
“Fighters from IS launched an assault this morning on Yarmuk and they took over the majority of the camp,” he said, adding that fierce clashes were continuing inside.
“They reached the Palestinian hospital and 15th Street which are in the centre of the camp,” he added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said IS took control of a “large part” of Yarmuk during fighting with Palestinian groups also opposed to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The Jihadists had infiltrated the camp from the rebel-held town of Hajar al-Aswad, according to the Britain-based monitoring group.
Yarmuk was the scene of a widely shared picture taken by the UN Palestinian refugee agency in January 2014 showing thousands of people packed into a destroyed street awaiting food aid.
It was once a thriving neighbourhood home to 160,000 Palestinian refugees and Syrians but has been caught up in the country’s fighting and besieged by regime forces for more than a year.
Only about 18,000 residents are estimated to remain in the camp after many fled the fighting.
Rebel fighters had withdrawn from Yarmuk in February 2014 under a deal that left only Palestinian anti-regime groups inside.
The siege has caused significant shortages of food, water and drugs at the camp.
IS, which last year declared a self-styled “caliphate” over large parts of Syria and Iraq under its control, has fought against the Assad regime as well as other rebel groups as it seeks to gain territory.
An activist in Yarmuk said IS launched the attack on the camp after some of its members were detained following the murder of a leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas there on Monday.
Rebel fighters have been gaining territory in the southern province of Daraa, cradle of the 2011 Arab Spring-inspired uprising against Assad that triggered the Syrian civil war.
Last week they seized full control of the ancient town of Bosra al-Sham, pushing pro-regime forces out after days of heavy fighting.
In January rebels — including fighters from the al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Nusra Front — seized an important government army base in the province.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, a coalition of rebel fighters including Islamists attacked Syria’s main border crossing with Jordan, known as the Nasib post, prompting the authorities in Amman to close it.
“Fierce fighting over the control of the Nasib border crossing with Jordan erupted early this morning between Islamists and rebels and regime forces, with the rebels putting the crossing under siege,” said the Observatory.
The rebel fighters had besieged the post and were facing a barrage of crudely constructed barrel bombs and rocket fire from government forces.
Jordan’s government said later that it had closed the crossing to both travellers and goods.
The closure was a “preventive measure to safeguard the lives and security of travellers due to the fighting underway on the other side of the border,” Interior Minister Hussein Majali told AFP.
Meanwhile, northwest of the capital, the army captured a strategic position in the rebel-held town of Zabadani, west of Damascus and on the road in Beirut.