AKCAKALE, Turkey: Kurdish fighters and allied Syrian rebels consolidated their control Tuesday of a strategic Syrian border town whose capture dealt the militants of the Islamic State a major blow by cutting a key supply route.
The fight for Tal Abyad, just south of the Turkish border, had set off a chaotic refugee exodus earlier this week, but that deluge slowed to a trickle Tuesday. At midday, officials at the adjacent Turkish border crossing said new arrivals numbered in the scores, rather than the thousands who broke through a border fence close to the crossing on Sunday.