With ISIS fighters advancing into the Kurdish city of Kobani along the Syria-Turkey border west of ISIS territory, the faction is already looking to expand its offensive against the Kurds on the opposite side of their Syrian possessions, near the northeastern city of Hasakeh.
A pair of suicide attacks destroyed two checkpoints at the city’s entrance, killing at least 30 Kurdish fighters at the two sites and apparently setting the stage for another offensive.
ISIS territory spans virtually the whole Syria-Iraq border now, and includes the whole of the Deir Ezzor and Raqqah Provinces, along with significant portions of other provinces along their frontier.
The Hasakeh Province is largely held by the Kurds, and is separated from the rest of Syria by ISIS territory now. It does, however, border both Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan.
If ISIS manages to take this region, it would effectively mean they hold all of Syria’s Kurdish territories, and assuming they don’t start suffering territorial losses inside Iraq, they could commit their forces in Syria entirely to the western front, expanding deeper into Aleppo and central Syria.