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On May 26 the Popular Mobilization Commission announced “Operation Labaik ya Hussein” with the stated goal of clearing northern and western Salah ad-Din, southeast of Tikrit, and Ramadi.

ISIS seized the historic city of Palmyra in central Syria on May 20 and continued to  advance westward towards the strategic regime T4 Airbase along the highway to Homs city as well as southwest into the Eastern Qalamoun region along the road to Damascus.

ISIS continued its campaign for the Euphrates following the fall of Ramadi and Palmyra. In Anbar ISIS seized the Iraqi side of the Tanf/Waleed border crossing with Syria, having captured the Syrian side on May 22. ISIS has mounted complex, coordinated attacks involving multiple VBIEDs against ISF-controlled Haditha and Baghdadi, near al-Asad Airbase, thereby challenging an ISF advance on Ramadi from the west.  

ISIS seized the Tanf border crossing between Iraq and Syria, circled in the map above. The status of the Walid border crossing on the Iraq side is still unknown and assessed to be contested.

ISIS is attacking Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) positions near and far from Ramadi preemptively to compromise potential ISF counter-offensives against ISIS’s positions in Ramadi, still vulnerable while ISIS is consolidating its power there.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of ISIS’s capture of Mosul and declaration of a caliphate, it appears that the organization is more robust than ever. ISIS is expanding its operations, and exploiting state tensions across the Middle East in order to accelerate disorder and gain power. 

ISIS seized the last regime-controlled border crossing between Syria and Iraq with the capture of the al-Tanf crossing on May 22 following a regime withdrawal.

ISIS seized the last regime-controlled border crossing between Syria and Iraq with the capture of the al-Tanf crossing on May 22 following a regime withdrawal.