Bab al-Salam is the first border crossing between Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Islamic emirate and Turkey. If Abu Abdulrahman al-Kuwaiti, the emir of Azaz for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), succeeds in the coming hours in settling the military operation that began on Oct. 2, 2013, at dawn against the Northern Storm Brigade, the borders of the emirate sought to be established by ISIS and its leader will likely be drawn along the line expanding from the northern city of Raqqa, to the countryside of Idlib and all the way to the strategic Syrian crossing with Turkey.
The organization, which was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq and restructured by Baghdadi in 2006 to comprise 26 factions, including al-Qaeda, occasionally monopolizes control over the strategic line expanding from Latakia to the west to the border with Iraq to the east, and all the way to Iraq’s Anbar province. The organization has no real competition within the armed opposition.