BAGHOUZ, Syria, March 23, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Kurdish-led forces on Friday
battled a small group of Islamic State jihadists refusing to surrender and
still defending the last few acres of their moribund “caliphate” in eastern
Syria.
In the afternoon mortar rounds hit a former IS encampment in the village of
Baghouz on the banks of the Euphrates River, sending a column of dark smoke
up into the sky, an AFP correspondent said.
The White House said the once-sprawling “caliphate” had been wiped out but
the Syrian Democratic Forces it backs on the ground stressed that clashes
were ongoing.
President Donald Trump’s spokeswoman, Sarah Sanders, said “the territorial
caliphate has been eliminated in Syria.”
“Clashes are ongoing in Baghouz. Small IS groups refusing to surrender are
launching attacks and our forces are responding,” SDF spokesman Adnan Afrin
told an AFP reporter near Baghouz.
The White House has jumped the gun several times on announcing the demise
of IS territorial control.
An SDF official who asked not to be named said warplanes of the US-led
coalition resumed strikes on suspected jihadist positions before dawn on
Friday.
Top SDF commander Jia Furat said his forces were engaging with the
jihadists on several fronts.
The US-led coalition said the “operation to complete the liberation of
Baghouz is ongoing”.
“It remains a hard fight, and Daesh is showing that they intend to keep
fighting for as long as possible,” it said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
The SDF launched what it called its “final assault” against the jihadists’
last redoubt in Baghouz on February 9.
Finally on Tuesday, they cornered diehard fighters into a few acres of
farmland along the Euphrates River, after forcing them out of the encampment.
– Tunnels –
Inside Baghouz on Friday afternoon, SDF fighters languished idle on the
roofs of abandoned buildings in the middle of a sea of ruins, an AFP reporter
said.
In the no-man’s-land on the edge of what was once the jihadist encampment,
a few US-backed fighters walked about unarmed.
The six-month-old operation to wipe out the last vestige of IS’s once-
sprawling proto-state is close to reaching its inevitable outcome, but the
SDF has said a declaration of victory will be made only after they have
completed flushing out the last tunnels and hideouts.
According to SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel, hundreds of IS fighters, including
some women, still remain on the outskirts of the jihadist encampment.
They are hiding along the bank of the Euphrates River as well as at the
base of a hill overlooking Baghouz, he told AFP.
“In around one or two days, we will conclude military operations if there
are no surprise developments,” he said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said IS holdouts were
hiding in underground tunnels in Baghouz.
More than 66,000 people, mostly civilians, have quit the last IS redoubt
since January 9, according to the SDF.
They include 5,000 jihadist fighters and 24,000 of their relatives as well
as 37,000 other civilians.
– Calls for more attacks –
The thousands who have streamed out have been housed in cramped camps and
prisons run by Kurdish forces further north.
On Wednesday night, around 2,000 women and children from Baghouz arrived at
the largest camp, Al-Hol, which is struggling to cope with the influx of tens
of thousands of people, many in poor health.
Since December, at least 138 people, mostly children, have died en route to
Al-Hol or shortly after arrival, according to the International Rescue
Committee.
IS declared a “caliphate” in June 2014 after seizing a vast swathe of
territory larger than Britain straddling Iraq and Syria.
The loss of the Baghouz enclave would signal the demise of the “caliphate”
in Syria, after its defeat in Iraq in 2017.
The jihadists still retain a presence in eastern Syria’s vast Badia desert
and have continued to claim deadly hit-and-run attacks in SDF-held territory.
In a video released on IS’s social media channels on Thursday, jihadists
vowed to continue to carry out attacks.
“To those who think our caliphate has ended, we say not only has it not
ended, but it is here to stay,” said one fighter.
He urged IS supporters to conduct attacks in the West against the enemies
of the “caliphate”.
The war in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions
since it erupted following the repression of anti-government protests in
2011.