A hospital has been evacuated and as many as 100,000 people are feared displaced after a new Isis offensive near the Turkish border in Syria.
Militants have seized several towns and villages from rebels and are advancing on the city of Azaz.
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said it was evacuating medics and patients from the Al Salamah hospital as the Islamists neared.
It said a basic team would remain to help the ill and wounded and that around 100,000 displaced people living in the rebel enclave were under threat.
Pablo Marco, an operations manager at the humanitarian organisation, said: “We are terribly concerned about the fate of our hospital, our patients and for the estimated 100,000 people trapped between the Turkish border and active frontlines.
“For some months the frontlines have been around seven kilometres away from the hospital and now they’re only 3km (2 miles) from Al Salamah town.
“There is nowhere for people to flee as the fighting gets closer.”
In a propaganda statement, Isis claimed to have taken control of seven villages from the Free Syrian Army and “apostate” fighters.
In Kaljibrin, there were reports that militants had publicly executed rebel fighters and their families, including women and children, in a main square.
Isis said it had seized American-made weapons from “US-vetted” groups in the advance, although it was impossible to verify the claim.
The Isis offensive has split rebel-held territory in northern Aleppo Governorate into two, leaving a thin sliver linking the city of Azaz to the Turkish border and town of Marea, bordered on the other side by Kurdish groups.
Syrian rebel factions in the area, which includes the border crossing of Bab al-Salama, have also come under fire from pro-government forces and the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces in recent months.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday's advance also effectively cut off a key supply route between Azaz and Marea, another opposition stronghold.
Both Azaz and the Bab al-Salama crossing have been a lifeline for the opposition since the town fell into rebel hands in 2012 but are being threatened by Russian air strikes and fighting.
MSF and other aid organisations warned earlier this month that the humanitarian situation for over 100,000 people trapped in the Azaz rebel-held pocket was critical.
Isis’ latest advance came days after the Syrian Democratic Forces announced an assault against the group’s territories in northern Raqqa province.
In Iraq, the group is battling to hold the city of Fallujah amid an advance by government forces and Iranian and Shia militias.
Jabhat al-Nusra has also claimed recent gains in Deir Khabiyeh, south of Damascus, where government forces and Hezbollah have captured territory from insurgents.
Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy for Syria, said he plans for a resumption of peace talks “as soon as feasible” between the Government and opposition but expects that it will “certainly not” come within the next two to three weeks.
Isis and the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra are excluded from negotiations, which were suspended last month between Bashar al-Assad’s government and other rebels.
