In recent days, the Islamic State has been concentrating its attacks on the eastern suburbs of Homs, which they have named Wilayat al-Badiya. These attacks are aimed at opening up a strategic route between Syria’s north and south, in order to tie IS forces together from the northern province of Raqqa through the suburbs of Damascus. The route would allow IS access through the outskirts of Hama, eastern Homs, and the eastern Qalamoun region
The Syrian regime’s strength in those areas has been greatly diminished, except for key points like the Shaer oil fields, which IS has recently begun to attack. The Syrian regime has set up a number of checkpoints in the area after numerous Syrian army soldiers were killed or kidnapped, forcing the remaining troops to retreat to the Jehar area. IS was able to continue its operations in the eastern outskirts of Homs, where it targeted the Tayfour military airport with a number of GRAD rockets and an explosive vehicle driven by a suicide bomber through the airport’s gate on the Tadmor-Damascus highway. The Tayfour airport is considered one of the most important strategic points for the regime, which still relies on it as well as the Shairat airport in Hama to bomb areas in northern Syria
IS operations at Tayfour have not stopped; instead, the organization led intense clashes in the Belaas mountains north of the city of Qariyatayn in the eastern suburbs of Homs. This forced the regime to send large reinforcements to those areas, because it felt a real threat from IS’s advances.
Observers have also noted the likelihood of airstrikes in the very near future by coalition forces on IS points in the eastern suburbs of Homs, as well as key IS areas in the Qalamoun region, where clashes have been heating up in the past few days
It is also important to note that in recent months, IS appointed military commander Hasan Abboud, the head of the Daoud Sabqa Brigades, as emir of Wilayat al-Badiya, which includes the outskirts of Homs and eastern Hama. IS provided him with financial and military support to ramp up clashes in these areas in an effort to eliminate other fighting groups, leaving IS as the only beneficiary of the strength of local tribes. Incorporating these tribes into IS ranks would consolidate IS’s control over these areas, and would open the way for it to advance on the south and gain another border with a neighboring country – Jordan. IS’s control of the Bir al-Qasb area would allow them to cut off the strategic route for moderate rebels coming from Jordan
