BEIRUT -- The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant captured a key Syrian town near the Iraq border from other rebels Tuesday and advanced toward a stronghold of its main jihadi rivals, an activist group said.
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The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Boukamal fell to the militants early Tuesday after days of battles between the group and other factions led by the Nusra Front, al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate.
Activists in the area could not immediately be reached, and calls to Boukamal and nearby areas were not going through.
The Observatory, which has a network of activists around Syria, said the Islamic State called in reinforcements from Iraq during the fighting.
The latest victory by the jihadi group, which controls parts of Syria and Iraq, came two days after it declared the establishment of a transnational Islamic state, or caliphate.
The group says its Islamic state stretches from northern Syria to the Iraqi province of Diyala northeast of Baghdad. It has called on all Muslims worldwide to pledge allegiance to it.
The Observatory said the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant released more than 100 detainees it was holding in the northern Syrian town of Al-Bab after the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, issued an amnesty on the occasion of establishing the self-styled caliphate.
Last week, some Nusra Front fighters defected and joined their Islamic State rivals in Boukamal -- making it likely the town would fall to the powerful group, which controls the Iraqi side of the crossing.
Al-Baghdadi's group held a triumphant parade Monday in Raqqa, the largest city it controls in Syria. Fighters drove through the streets displaying material apparently captured in Iraq -- U.S.-made Humvees, heavy machine guns, tanks and armored personnel carriers, and a flatbed truck carrying what appeared to be a Scud missile.
The Observatory said the Islamic State, an al-Qaida breakaway group, was advancing Tuesday toward the town of Shuheil, northwest of Boukamal, a Nusra Front stronghold believed to be the hometown of its leader, a Syrian known as Abu Muhammed al-Golani.
As fighting between rival groups intensified later Tuesday, thousands of Shuheil's inhabitants were seen fleeing the town, the Observatory said.
Up to 7,000 people, the majority of them fighters, have been killed in the rebel-on-rebel violence across the opposition-held territory in northern and eastern Syria since January, according to the Observatory's tally, which is compiled by its activists on the ground.
The Islamic State has acted with brutal efficiency in territory under its control in Iraq and in Syria, fighting its armed rivals for control of strategic facilities, including oil fields. It also intimidates civilians, captures those who speak against it and executes its armed rivals.
In the northern Aleppo province, it has been holding 133 boys from the predominantly Kurdish town of Ayn al-Arab, according to a statement Tuesday by Human Rights Watch. The New York-based group demanded the militants immediately release the boys, aged 13 to 14.
The group abducted 153 children on May 29 as they were returning home from school exams in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, Human Rights Watch said. From Aleppo, about 110 kilometers north of Ayn al-Arab, the bus carrying the children had to drive across territory controlled by the Islamic State.
Five boys escaped their captors, and 15 others were released Saturday in exchange for three of the group's militants held by Kurdish rebels, Human Rights Watch said in the statement, which was based on interviews with fathers of three abducted children and three officials from the ruling Kurdish Democratic Union Party in Ayn al-Arab.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, the U.S. ship MV Cape Ray sailed into the southern Italian port of Gioia Tauro on Tuesday to handle the transfer and destruction of about 1,300 tons of Syrian chemical weapons.
The 648-foot U.S. government cargo ship has been fitted with two machines designed to neutralize the most toxic chemicals -- including mustard gas and the raw materials for sarin nerve gas -- that were removed from Syria as part of the international effort to destroy its chemical weapons.
The most dangerous chemical weapons will be transferred from the Danish vessel Ark Futura to the Cape Ray, which will move into international waters for the destruction, officials said. Other material will be taken to toxic waste sites in various countries for disposal.
The ship's two machines, called Field Deployable Hydrolysis Systems, will mix the Syrian chemicals with heated water and a cocktail of other chemicals in a titanium reactor to render them inert.
Destroying chemical weapons at sea is unprecedented, but U.S. officials said the process is a proven, safe way to neutralize toxic chemicals. They said no vapor or water runoff will be released into the atmosphere or the sea as a result.
Information for this article was contributed by Bassem Mroue, Francesco Sportelli, Nicole Winfield and staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 07/02/2014