DAMASCUS — A six-week offensive by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) against rivals in eastern Syria has killed 600 fighters and driven 130,000 people from their homes, a monitoring group said on Tuesday.
ISIL, which is battling to control a huge area of east Syria and western Iraq, has advanced along the Euphrates River in the oil producing Deir al-Zor province, driving back militants from Nusra Front and other brigades.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIL now controls most of the northeast bank of the Euphrates from close to the border with Turkey down to the town of Busayra nearly 200 miles (320 km) to the southeast.
It aims to extend that control all the way to the town of Albukamal on the Iraqi border, strengthening links between its Syrian and Iraqi wings, the Observatory's Rami Abdelrahman said.
Across the border, ISIL has made stunning gains, overrunning the headquarters of the provincial government in Iraq's northern city of Mosul late on Monday.
The group follows al Qaeda's ideology but its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has defied orders by al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri to stop fighting in Syria and focus on Iraq.
His enemies say ISIL has almost exclusively targeted rival rebels - including the Nusra Front which Baghdadi originally nurtured - rather than Assad's forces, as it exploits turmoil in Syria and insecurity in Iraq to carve out territory.
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