DAMASCUS — Clashes between insurgents and the Syrian spread to a coastal area near the Turkish border as opposition fighters pressed on with a campaign to gain access to the sea, activists said.

Capturing the seaside tourist village of Samra, which straddles the Syria-Turkey border, would give rebels an outlet to the Mediterranean for the first time since the Syrian conflict began over three years ago.

It would also give them another boost following the rebels’ capture of the area’s predominantly Armenian Christian town of Kassab on Sunday and the nearby border crossing with the same name.

The seizure of the crossing severed one of the Assad government’s last links to the Turkish border and came after Syrian troops captured several towns near the border with Lebanon — advances that were part of a government drive to sever rebel supply lines across the porous Lebanese frontier.

Fighting was still raging through the area on Thursday, March 27.

Rebels on Sunday killed Hilal al-Assad, the Syrian president’s cousin, who was leading a pro-regime militia in the Syrian coastal region. Turkey also shot down a Syrian fighter jet on Sunday.

Turkey blocked YouTube as a precaution after voice recordings purportedly of senior officials discussing a potential military operation in Syria created “a national security issue,” a source at the prime minister’s office said on Thursday.

The source said that Turkey was in talks with the video sharing platform and may lift the ban if YouTube agreed to remove the content.

The anonymous YouTube account posted what it presented as a recording of intelligence chief Hakan Fidan discussing with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Deputy Chief of military Staff Yasar Guler and other top officials an operation in Syria to protect the tomb of Suleyman Shah, the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire.

The tomb is under Turkish custody and guarded by Turkish soldiers, as stipulated by the 1921 Treaty of Ankara with the French.

A threat by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham [ISIS] was circulated on the Internet, last week. The Internet message said: “We are giving you three days [to evacuate] the soldiers in this tomb which is on the Islamic land of Aleppo. Or, we will raze the tomb.”

“An operation against ISIS has international legitimacy. We will define it as al-Qaeda. There are no issues on the al-Qaeda framework,” a voice presented as that of foreign ministry undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu says in the leaked audio. “When it comes to the Suleyman Shah tomb, it’s about the protection of national soil.”

Erdogan slammed leaking the conversation.

“They even leaked a national security meeting. This is villainous, this is dishonesty…Who are you serving by doing audio surveillance of such an important meeting?” Erdogan declared before supporters at a rally ahead of March 30 local polls that will be a key test of his support amid a corruption scandal.