For the past two days, rebels backed by Turkey and the US in northern Syria have been fighting for their survival against the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
With support from Turkey and the US-led coalition, including cross-border shelling and air cover, rebels in the northern province of Aleppo have been fighting for months to clear the Islamic State (IS) from the Aleppo countryside, the jihadist organization's last connection to the Turkish border.
On Friday, IS punched through rebel territory north of Aleppo, cutting off a key rebel supply route from Turkey to rebel territory. Rebels in one town along the supply route, in Marea, have now been cut off from their connection resupply and reinforcements further north in the border town of Azaz, which is near the Bab al-Salamah border crossing with Turkey.Since Friday, IS has launched wave after wave of attacks against stranded rebels in Marea and areas to the north.
Yet even before IS launched its latest attack, the battle with IS was obviously faltering. In interviews in Turkey and speaking remotely over social media from inside Aleppo, Western officials and Aleppo rebels and civilians blamed the Islamic State's battlefield successes on everything from rebel dysfunction to insufficient foreign backing, and even on an international anti-rebel conspiracy.