Fighting has erupted throughout Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, with observers claiming Islamic State has entered the area, less than 10 miles from the Syrian capital’s most secure hub.
Yarmouk, the largest Palestinian camp in Syria, has been a frequent battle zone pitting regime forces against mainstream and Islamist rebels during more than three years of fighting, which along with a brutal siege has emptied it of all but around 15,000 of its pre-war population of close to 200,000 residents.
However, no organised Isis presence has previously been reported inside the camp. The terror group has a hold over much of eastern Syria, part of the north and the Qalamoun mountains near neighbouring Lebanon, but it is not known to have established a foothold in Damascus.
Officials from the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) said Isis entered the camp from the Hajjar al-Aswad area. Rebels who had remained in Yarmouk’s ruins are said to have attacked the new arrivals, and clashes reportedly continued until the evening.
The area around Yarmouk, effectively a suburb of south-west Damascus, is controlled by Syrian forces, which for three years have enforced a siege that has led most residents to flee to other parts of the capital or to Lebanon.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has repeatedly implored Syrian officials to allow aid into the camp, which has been severely damaged by shelling and street fighting.
“UNRWA is extremely concerned about the safety and protection of Syrian and Palestinian civilians in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in Damascus, where since early afternoon today, intensive armed conflict has been ongoing between armed groups present in the area,” said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness.
The Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis group is reported to be shelling newly established Isis positions in the south of the area.
Isis launched an offensive in western Syria last week, targeting the eastern countrysides of Homs and Hama, which are north of Damascus, but there were no indications that it would redirect its fighters towards the capital.
If Isis is now confirmed to be inside Yarmouk, the group is likely to portray its arrival as a humanitarian liberation of besieged Muslims.
And if the group has established a presence in the Damascus suburbs, it would be competing with Islamist rivals such as Jaysh al-Islam, which controls much of the Damascus countryside and periodically shells the city.
Hassan Hassan, a Syrian analyst and co-author of Isis: Inside the Army of Terror, the incursion into Yarmouk, if it was Isis, was likely to have been carried out by sleeper cells around the Damascus countryside reinforced by small numbers of Isis troops, perhaps drawn from the Lebanese border region.
Hassan said Isis had been attempting for months to establish sleeper cells in the areas around Damascus, many of which had been dismantled by their Islamist rivals. This month Jaysh al-Islam’s spokesman told al-Jazeera that the rebel group had killed and arrested members of an Isis sleeper cell in eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus.
Elsewhere, Jordan, closed its only functioning border crossing with Syria following heavy clashes on the Syrian side between rebels and government forces. A Jordanian government spokesman told the Associated Press that the Nasib crossing was temporarily closed late on Tuesday because of clashes nearby.
“It is important for us to keep the safety for the passengers and those who are trying to cross between the two countries,” the spokesman said. “So we decided to close the border temporarily, until things calm down. Then we will open it again.”
A spokesman for rebels in southern Syria, Issam al-Rayess, confirmed that rebel fighters were trying to take control of the border crossing from Syrian authorities.
The Nasib crossing is the only functioning crossing between Jordan and Syria and is considered a crucial gateway for Syria’s government and for Syrian, Lebanese and Jordanian traders and merchants.
