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US-backed Syrian forces launch attack on final Isis enclave

‘Military operations have started – we are now clashing with the terrorists’

Jane Dalton
Sunday 10 March 2019 21:05 GMT
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US-backed Syrian forces have launched an assault on the final Isis enclave in eastern Syria, aiming to wipe out the last vestige of its “caliphate” that once spanned a third of Iraq and Syria.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been poised to advance into the enclave for weeks, but have held back to allow civilians, many of them wives and children of Islamic State fighters, to escape.

The Baghouz enclave is the last shred of populated land held by the jihadists, but the group is still widely seen as a big security threat elsewhere and able to launch guerrilla attacks.

Mustafa Bali, of the SDF, said no civilians had emerged from the enclave at the Iraqi border since Saturday and none had been seen in the area, prompting the decision to attack.

“The military operations have started. Our forces are now clashing with the terrorists and the attack started,” he said.

Mr Bali said more than 4,000 IS militants had surrendered in the past month, among the tens of thousands of people who have streamed out of Baghouz – a collection of hamlets surrounded by farmland on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River.

But it’s believed the most hardened foreign jihadists are still holed up inside, ready to fight to the end.

Mr Bali tweeted that air strikes had targeted Islamic State weapons stores, and he said that “direct and fierce” clashes were under way.

Islamic State has been driven from the territory it once held in Syria and Iraq by an array of enemies, including forces backed by Russia, Iran and Turkey in addition to the United States.

It suffered major military defeats in 2017 with the loss of the Syrian city of Raqqa and Iraq’s Mosul.

A former IS fighter who surrendered to the SDF two months ago said the group sent hundreds of men out of its diminishing territory to establish sleeper cells.

The SDF has steadily driven IS down the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, forcing its fighters and followers to fall back to Baghouz.

Additional reporting by Reuters

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