US-backed Syrian fighters ‘overrun IS encampment’
US-backed Syrian fighters are reported to have overrun an encampment that made up a lot of the final patch of territory held by the Islamic State group.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance stated militants refusing to give up had pulled again to a sliver of land alongside the River Euphrates south of Baghuz, and that clashes continued.
Though it warned the battle was not over, some fighters started celebrating.
Baghuz’s fall would deliver an finish to the “caliphate” proclaimed by IS in 2014.
The jihadist group as soon as managed 88,000 sq km (34,000 sq miles) of land stretching throughout Syria and Iraq, imposed its rule on nearly eight million individuals, and generated billions of dollars from oil, extortion, theft and kidnapping.
After 5 years of bloody battles, native forces backed by world powers have pushed IS out of all however just a few hundred sq. metres.
However the group is under no circumstances defeated. US officers imagine IS could have 15,000 to 20,000 armed adherents energetic within the area, lots of them in sleeper cells, and that it’s going to return to its rebel roots whereas making an attempt to rebuild.
What number of militants are left in Baghuz?
It’s not identified. At the beginning of March, when the SDF started its last assault on the village, commanders estimated there have been just a few hundred militants holed up inside.
However the Kurdish-led alliance was compelled to gradual its offensive after it emerged that a lot of civilians have been additionally there, sheltering in buildings, tents and tunnels.
As many as 20,000 kids and ladies – lots of them overseas nationals – have since been evacuated to an SDF-run camp for displaced individuals at al-Hol, swelling its inhabitants to 70,000 and overwhelming help staff. A number of thousand males have additionally surrendered and been taken to separate SDF detention centres.
Militants who selected to remain in Baghuz continued to place up fierce resistance, deploying suicide bombers and automobile bombs, however by Monday they’d been pushed again to a small patch of open farmland subsequent to the Euphrates that was coated in tents, autos and foxholes.
On Tuesday morning, SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali stated it had taken management of the encampment and that the final militants had retreated to the riverbank.
“This is not a victory announcement, but a significant progress in the fight against [IS],” he cautioned in a Twitter publish. “Clashes are continuing as a group of [IS] terrorists who are confined into a tiny area still fight back.”
Mr Bali added that tens of of sick and wounded militants had been captured by the SDF because it took the encampment and that they’d been taken to hospitals.
Are SDF fighters celebrating too early?
On Tuesday afternoon, the BBC’s Aleem Maqbool noticed lorries leaving Baghuz full of what he was instructed have been tens of of militants, in addition to SDF fighters celebrating on their return from the entrance strains.
Jiaker Amed, a spokesman for the Kurdish militia that dominates the SDF, instructed our correspondent they have been celebrating “a victory for all humanity”.
Mr Amed declared that each one IS territory in Baghuz had been retaken, though he admitted that some militants may be hiding underground in tunnels.
Later, Mr Bali instructed Reuters information company that preventing was persevering with and that militants remained “in several pockets”. “Their presence is not limited to a defined geography,” he added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, in the meantime reported that at least 14 SDF fighters have been killed and 30 others injured by IS gunfire and landmine explosions as they attacked the encampment.
An Italian man preventing for the SDF, Lorenzo Orsetti, was killed on Sunday.
Even with its defeat in Baghuz imminent, IS launched a defiant audio recording purportedly from its spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir that asserted that the caliphate was not over.
Muhajir accused US President Donald Trump of “falsely” asserting victory over IS in Syria in December, and insisted IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was alive.
Source: US-backed Syrian fighters ‘overrun IS encampment’ – 2 What