More Than 700 Killed as ISIS Tightens Grip on East

Asharq al-Awsat reports that more than 700 were killed in Syria on Thursday and Friday, in what the opposition-backed Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said was the first time deaths had topped 700 in a two-day period since the start of the conflict.

The paper says that 270 people died in fighting “between pro-Syrian government forces and militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), when the latter seized the Shaar gas field east of the city of Homs on Friday. The death toll of Thursday’s clashes was 396 people, while Friday’s total reached 314. Ninety more people were still unaccounted for, although they were also expected to have been killed.”

Syria Rebels Press Bid to Expel ISIS from Damascus Area

The Daily Star reports that Syrian rebel groups have expelled ISIS militants from areas of the Damascus suburbs after losing wide swaths of territory to the Sunni extremists in the country’s north and east.

“Despite being besieged by government troops, Islamist rebels have managed to eject ISIS from four areas in the Damascus region in a drive launched three weeks ago,” the paper writes. “ISIS was initially welcomed as a potential ally in the revolt, but the group’s fanaticism and treatment of civilian populations and all other insurgent groups sparked a sustained counteroffensive.”

ISIS has been expelled from Damascus’s Misraba and Maydaa, two towns in the rebel stronghold of eastern Ghouta, as well as the southern suburbs of Yalda and Beit Sahm. In Yalda, ISIS fighters turned themselves over to fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra after being promised that they would be referred to a Sharia court and that they would be treated well in detention. Meanwhile, expelled militants fled to the southern Damascus neighborhoods of Al-Hajar al-Aswad, Tadamon and Qadam, where there is a strong ISIS presence.

Two Turkish Soldiers Killed in Clash with Suspected Smugglers Near Syria Border

Reuters reports that two Turkish soldiers have been killed in a clash with suspected smugglers near the Turkey-Syria border. The deaths come as Turkey faces “growing international pressure to police a major access route for European foreign fighters.”

The country’s struggle to control illicit traffic across the porous 560-mile border has become more difficult throughout the course of Syria’s conflict. A black market for staples like fuel and sugar, which command high prices in Turkey, is thriving and has sent a regular flow of cash into rebel-held areas of Syria.

The wire says: “Late on Monday, a military patrol confronted a group of smugglers trying to cross from Syria into the southeastern Turkish frontier district of Ceylanpinar, sparking a gun battle … Two soldiers were killed and another was wounded.” Security in Sanliurfa province has now been tightened.

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