{"id":258680,"date":"2016-10-16T09:58:15","date_gmt":"2016-10-16T09:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=258680"},"modified":"2016-10-16T09:58:15","modified_gmt":"2016-10-16T09:58:15","slug":"syria-conflict-rebels-capture-is-stronghold-of-dabiq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=258680","title":{"rendered":"Syria conflict: Rebels &#8216;capture&#8217; IS stronghold of Dabiq"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Turkish-backed rebels have captured the symbolically important Syrian town of Dabiq from the Islamic State group, rebel commanders and monitors say.<\/p>\n<p>The rebels took Dabiq after &#8220;IS members withdrew&#8221;, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.<\/p>\n<p>The small northern town holds great value for IS because of a prophecy of an apocalyptic battle, and features heavily in its propaganda.<\/p>\n<p>The advance on Dabiq is part of a wider offensive by Syrian rebel groups.<\/p>\n<p>Ahmed Osman, the commander of the Sultan Murad rebel group, told Reuters news agency on Sunday morning that the group had also recaptured the neighbouring village of Soran.<\/p>\n<p>Dabiq is just 10km (6 miles) from the border with Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>In August, Turkey launched an offensive to clear the border region of militants.<\/p>\n<p>In September, <a class=\"story-body__link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-middle-east-37272895\">the Turkish prime minister said the 91km borderline was &#8220;entirely secured&#8221;<\/a> and &#8220;all the terrorist organisations were pushed back&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turkish-backed rebels have captured the symbolically important Syrian town of Dabiq from the Islamic State group, rebel commanders and monitors say. The rebels took Dabiq after &#8220;IS members withdrew&#8221;, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The small northern town holds great value for IS because of a prophecy of an apocalyptic battle, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":258681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[12703,12704,12705],"class_list":["post-258680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-bbc-stories","tag-isis-stronghold","tag-rebels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/258681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}