YPG closing in on IS way station

Kurdish YPG forces reached within 20km northeast of an Islamic State (IS)-held village on Thursday along the Syria-Iraq border that serves as a way-station for IS guns and fighters flowing from Iraq into Syria, a Hasakah-based journalist told Syria Direct on Thursday.
 
“Coalition Apache helicopter gunships supported the Kurdish ground assault on al-Hawl–the site where IS forces in Iraq’s Sinjar province cross into Syria,” said Majid al-Hasakawi.
 
IS forces reportedly attempted a novel countermeasure against coalition air strikes, as foot soldiers “dug trenches around al-Hawl, filling each with crude oil, which they then plan to set alight, to blacken the skies and blind coalition war planes supporting the Kurdish assault,” added al-Hasakawi.
 
The fight for al-Hawl, 40km southeast of Al-Hasakah city, is ongoing, reported pro-regime news agency Dam Press on Thursday.