Militants from the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) removing part of the soil barrier on the Iraq-Syria borders and moving through it.

BEIRUT: Syrian Army has been pounding for 24 hours major bases of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in coordination with the Baghdad government, a monitor said Sunday.

The strikes against ISIL have been more intense than ever, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “The regime air force has been pounding ISIL’s bases, including those in the northern province of Raqa and Hasakeh in the northeast,” which borders Iraq, said the Britain-based group.

The regime of President Bashar Assad was responding to the fact that ISIL “brought into Syria heavy weapons including tanks” captured from the Iraqi army.

In Raqa, the air force bombed the area surrounding ISIL’s main headquarters in Syria, as well as the group’s religious courts, said the Observatory, adding there were no reported casualties.

Photographs sent by activists in Raqa that could not be independently verified showed craters in the ground and rubble in front of the main gates of the headquarters, a former town hall.

On Saturday, the regime also bombarded ISIL’s headquarters at Shaddadi in Hasakeh, home to a frontier crossing from Iraq that is under the jihadi control.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said the strikes were the regime’s most “intense” against ISIL, and that they were being carried out “in coordination with the Iraqi authorities.” Baghdad has been gearing up for a counter-offensive against ISIL.