Syria rebel fighters cheer as they fight ISIS jihadists on the outskirts of the northern Syrian town of Dabiq.

NAZEER AL-KHATIB / AFP - Getty Images</s>Syrian rebels dealt a major symbolic blow to the Islamic State group Sunday by capturing the town of Dabiq — where the jihadis had promised an apocalyptic battle.

The defeat for the militants came as the United States and Britain warned they were considering imposing sanctions against economic targets in Syria and Russia, which is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, over the government-imposed siege of Aleppo, the country’s second city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Turkish state media and a rebel faction said opposition fighters backed by Turkish warplanes and artillery seized control of Dabiq.

The town, in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo, is of little strategic value. But Dabiq holds crucial ideological importance for the Islamic State group and its followers because of a Sunni prophecy that states it will be the site of an end-of-times battle between Christian forces and Muslims.

The Observatory, a Britain-based monitoring group, said rebel forces “captured Dabiq after IS members withdrew from the area.”

The Fastaqim Union, an Ankara-backed rebel faction involved in the battle, said Dabiq had fallen “after fierce clashes.”

Fastaqim said rebels then went on to seize several nearby towns, including Sawran, Ihtimaylat and Salihiyah.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said nine rebels were killed and 28 wounded during fighting to capture the towns.

Rebel commander Haitham Ibrahim Afassi said: “I thank God for giving us victory. The heros of the Free Syrian Army have liberated the region.”

Video footage showed the streets of the town virtually deserted, with black IS flags painted on the facades of buildings as well as jihadi graffiti.

Dabiq has become a byword among IS supporters for a struggle against the West, with Washington and its allies bombing jihadis portrayed as modern-day Crusaders.

The Islamic State group, which seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq in mid-2014 and declared an Islamic “caliphate,” has been dealt a series of military defeats this year and was bracing for an assault on its key Iraqi stronghold of Mosul after the start of military operations to liberate the city began Monday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Sunday that Turkish-backed rebels would now focus taking on the jihadi-held town of Al-Bab in Aleppo province.

Turkey launched an unprecedented operation inside Syria on Aug. 24, helping Syrian rebels rid its frontier of IS jihadis and Syrian Kurdish militia.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday said Turkey would push farther south to create a 5,000-sq.-km (1,900 sq.-mile) safe zone in Syria.

The border area has become deeply unstable, and on Sunday three Turkish police officers were killed when suspected IS suicide bombers blew themselves up during a raid on their sleeper cell in the southeastern city of Gaziantep.

Fighting continued to rock the city of Aleppo, where government troops have been waging a fierce Russian-backed offensive on rebels in the eastern quarters.

Clashes took place in Aleppo’s northern and southern outskirts Sunday, as well as in the city center, the Observatory said.

Airstrikes on rebel-held eastern areas killed 19 people, including 15 civilians, and wounded 23, it added.

There has also been nearly nonstop air raids on the opposition-held half of the city since midnight.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, in London on Sunday for talks on Syria with his British and French counterparts, branded the bombardment of civilians in Aleppo “crimes against humanity.”

“There are a lot of measures that we’re proposing including extra measures on the regime and their supporters,” Johnson said.

“These things will eventually come to bite the perpetrators of these crimes, and they should think about it now,” he warned.

Rebel fire on government-controlled districts of Aleppo left three people dead and more than two dozen wounded, Syrian state news agency SANA said.

Fighting has surged in the city following the collapse last month of a cease-fire brokered by the United States and Russia, raising deep international concern.

Kerry was in London to brief Washington’s European allies after “brainstorming” talks in Lausanne with the main players in Syria’s conflict, but hopes for a breakthrough in the conflict that has killed more than 300,000 people since 2011 remained dim.

Saturday’s meeting in Lausanne did not produce a concrete plan to restore the truce that collapsed amid bitter recriminations between Washington and Moscow.

Kerry warned Sunday that U.S. President Barack Obama had not taken any option off the table in trying to stop the killing, but downplayed the possibility of increased military action in Syria.

“We are discussing every mechanism available to us but I haven’t seen a big appetite from anyone in Europe to go to war,” he said.</s>The Free Syrian Army (FSA), a Turkish-backed faction, took back Sunday the town of Dabiq from ISIS, Turkish state media and a monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organization, said it received reports that groups of ISIS fighters had withdrawn from Dabiq overnight.

Though ISIS forces left, Turkish security sources told Anadolu's reporter the recapture of Dabiq was the hardest part so far for Operation Euphrates Shield.

Now the FSA operation will continue, according to Turkey's state-run Anadolu, as fighters seek to clear the town of mines, booby-traps and IEDs.

The small city, which is located about 10 km (just over 6 miles) south of the Turkish-Syrian border, is considered by some Islamic prophecies to be the site of an apocalyptic battle between Christians and Muslims. ISIS has even named its sleek English language magazine used to prominently feature propaganda "Dabiq."</s>Syrian rebels said they captured the village of Dabiq from Islamic State on Sunday, forcing the jihadist group from a stronghold where it had promised to fight a final, apocalyptic battle with the West.

Its defeat at Dabiq, long a mainstay of the propaganda of Islamic State (also known as Isis), underscores the group’s declining fortunes this year as it suffered battlefield defeats in Syria and Iraq and lost a string of senior leaders in targeted air strikes.

The group, whose lightning advance through swathes of the two countries and declaration that it had established a new caliphate stunned world leaders in 2014, is now girding for an offensive against Iraq’s Mosul, its most prized possession.

The rebels, backed by Turkish tanks and warplanes, took Dabiq and neighbouring Soran after clashes on Sunday morning, said Ahmed Osman, head of the Sultan Murad group, one of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions involved in the fighting.

“The Daesh myth of their great battle in Dabiq is finished,” he said, using a pejorative name for Islamic State.

The Free Syrian Army is an umbrella group for rebels seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions, dragging in regional and global powers and creating space for jihadists.

An Islamic prophecy names Dabiq as the site of a battle between Muslims and infidels that will presage doomsday, a message Islamic State used extensively in its propaganda, going so far as to name its main publication after the village.

It also chose Dabiq as the location for its killing in 2014 of Peter Kassig, an American aid worker held hostage by the group, by Mohammed al-Emwazi, better known as Jihadi John.

However, it has appeared to back away from Dabiq’s symbolism since advances by the FSA groups backed by Turkey had put it at risk of capture, saying in a more recent statement that this battle was not the one described in the prophecy.

The village, at the foot of a small hill in the fertile plains of Syria’s northwest about 14 km from the Turkish border and 33 km north of Aleppo, has little strategic significance in its own right.

But Dabiq and its surroundings, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamic State had brought 1,200 fighters in recent weeks, occupied a salient path into territory captured by the Turkey-backed rebels.

Ankara launched the Euphrates Shield operation, bringing rebels backed by its own armour and air force into action against Islamic State, in August, aiming to clear the group from its border and stop Kurdish groups gaining ground in that area.

A Turkish military source said that while Dabiq was largely under control, Islamic State fighters were still firing on the FSA groups from outside the village and that some rebels had been killed in blasts by landmines and other bombs.

The rebels and Turkish military were working to secure Dabiq’s surroundings to prevent any remaining Islamic State fighters trapped in the area from escaping.

Since early 2016, Islamic State’s territorial possessions in Syria have been steadily eroded by the Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella group of Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the United States, which in August took the city of Manbij.

Turkey’s campaign has since cut the jihadist group off from the Turkish border, long its most reliable entry point for supplies and foreign fighters.

Meanwhile, air strikes have killed a succession of Islamic State leaders in Syria, including its “war minister”, Omar al-Shishani, and Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, one of its leading strategists and an architect of its shift towards plotting attacks in Europe.

In Iraq, the army backed by Shi’ite Muslim militia groups has this year recaptured Falluja and is now poised for an offensive on Mosul, where Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in 2014 declared himself heir to Islam’s caliphs.

However the militants still hold most of Syria’s Euphrates basin, from al-Bab, 26 km southeast of Dabiq, through the group’s capital of Raqqa and to the Iraqi border.</s>The rebels, backed by Turkish tanks and warplanes, also took neighboring Soran, said Ahmed Osman, head of the Sultan Murad group, one of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions involved in the clashes on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

"The Daesh myth of their great battle in Dabiq is finished," he told Reuters, using a pejorative name for Islamic State.

An Islamic prophesy names Dabiq as the site of a battle between Muslims and infidels that will presage doomsday, a message used extensively in Islamic State's propaganda. The group also named a publication after the northwest village.

However, the jihadist group has appeared to back away from Dabiq's symbolism more recently after advances by Turkey-backed rebels put the village at risk of capture, saying this battle was not the one described in the prophesy.

"It seems like Daesh has mostly left the area," said a Turkish military source, but warning that the FSA groups still needed to clear landmines from the village.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, had said Islamic State brought 1,200 fighters to defend Dabiq.

Turkey launched the Euphrates Shield operation, bringing rebels backed by its own armor and air force into action against Islamic State, in August, aiming to clear the group from its border and stop Kurdish fighters gaining ground in that area.

Islamic State is also facing an expected offensive soon against its most important Iraqi possession, the city of Mosul, while the U.S.-backed, Kurd-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces also threaten to advance on its Syrian capital of Raqqa.</s>Turkish-backed Syrian opposition forces have captured the symbolically significant town of Dabiq from the Islamic State group, the factions said yesterday morning.

A commander of the Syrian opposition Hamza Brigade said Islamic State fighters put up “minimal” resistance to defend the northern Syrian town before withdrawing in the direction of the much larger IS-held town of al-Bab to the south.

Saif Abu Bakr said some 2,000 opposition fighters pushed into Dabiq with tank and artillery support from the Turkish army. The commander said the extremists left the town heavily mined.

Both Turkish and international coalition warplanes conducted airstrikes on Dabiq and nearby Arshak, the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

The Islamic State group took control of the town, which had a pre-war population of about 3,000 people, in August 2014. The group’s propaganda had boasted of the fight for the northern Syrian town, citing Islamic lore that it would be the scene of a major battle between crusaders and an army of the Muslim caliphate that would herald Doomsday. The group’s English language magazine, Dabiq, is named after the town, and in 2014 they said they had buried the American captive Peter Abdul-Rahman Kassig there.

The Turkish military intervened in the Syrian war in August this year under orders from Ankara to clear the border area from the Islamic State group and from US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces linked to Turkey’s own outlawed Kurdish insurgency. The Turkish government describes both groups as terrorists.

Syrian opposition forces backed by Turkish ground and air forces have since expelled Islamic State militants from their last positions along the Syrian-Turkish frontier and are closing in on Al-Bab, one of the last remaining IS strongholds in Syria’s contested Aleppo province.

Turkey has bussed thousands of opposition fighters from other fronts in northern Syria to the frontier as part of operation Euphrates Shield, named after the river that runs through the region.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group, which monitors the conflict through a network of local contacts, said IS had sent over 1,000 fighters to defend Dabiq before withdrawing hurriedly.</s>BEIRUT — Turkish-backed Syrian opposition forces have captured the symbolically significant town of Dabiq from the Islamic State group, the factions said Sunday morning.

A commander of the Syrian opposition Hamza Brigade said Islamic State fighters put up “minimal” resistance to defend the northern Syrian town before withdrawing in the direction of the much larger IS-held town of al-Bab to the south.

Saif Abu Bakr said some 2,000 opposition fighters pushed into Dabiq with tank and artillery support from the Turkish Army.

Both Turkish and international coalition warplanes conducted airstrikes on Dabiq and nearby Arshak, the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group, which monitors the conflict through a network of local contacts, says the extremist group withdrew from Dabiq.

Islamic State propaganda had boasted of the fight for the northern Syrian town, citing Islamic lore that it would be the scene of a major battle between crusaders and army of the Muslim caliphate that would herald Doomsday. The group’s English language magazine, Dabiq, is named after the town.
Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army rebels seize control of the symbolic town of Dabiq, Aleppo Governorate, following clashes with ISIL militants.