Day 1,187: The Syrian government decides it’s time to get serious about ISIL

Today is Day 1,187 of the Syrian conflict.

Over the weekend, Syrian government forces regained the ground lost in prior months in Latakia province in the northwest, including retaking the Armenian Christian town of Kasab.

In addition, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday that the air force was now bombarding bases of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) "in coordination with the Iraqi authorities."

No less a figure than the former UN special envoy to Syria had previously spoken of the speculation that the regime had avoided attacking ISIL, preferring to let the extremist group's atrocities drive Syrians back into the government's arms. Whether or not that's true, ISIL's recent offensive in Iraq apparently got the Syrian government's attention — particularly the part where ISIL captured weapons, "including tanks," from the Iraqi army and drove them back over the border for use in Syria.

The Huffington Post has a good piece today on what it was like for Syrian refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan to hear, as ISIL began its Iraq offensive, that the war they'd fled had followed them. Head on over to read.

The conflict continues.