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Islamic State Advances
(Jerusalem Post) Jonathan Spyer - In recent weeks, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (IS, formerly ISIS) has been expanding its borders. There is mounting evidence that IS has obtained a chemical weapons capacity and has utilized it on at least one occasion during intense combat against the Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria. In Syria, IS captured the Division 17 base from regime forces and subsequently executed over 200 members of the garrison. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that at least 50 of these men were decapitated. Footage on the Internet shows severed heads placed on a fence in Raqqa city. There is also clear evidence of Palestinians, specifically Gazans, fighting in Syria in an organized unit under the IS banner, and of at least one clearly IS-linked group operating in northern Sinai and in Gaza itself. Instead of making a bid for Baghdad, IS is concentrating its attention on expanding in a westward and northern direction.