Baladi News
U.S-backed fighters will resume their assault on Islamic State’s last, small patch of ground in eastern Syria if no more civilians come out by Saturday afternoon, one of their spokesmen said on Friday.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have slowed their offensive on the jihadist enclave at Baghouz near the Iraqi border to allow many thousands of people to pour out in an exodus that has lasted weeks.
A month ago the SDF launched what it called a “final battle” to take the cluster of houses and farmland, and people leaving the enclave have described harrowing conditions of peril and hardship.
The capture of Baghouz will mark the end of Islamic State’s territorial rule over populated areas of Iraq and Syria, and the culmination of a U.S.-backed military campaign waged by the SDF for four years.
After suddenly seizing swathes of land straddling the Iraqi-Syrian border in 2014 and declaring it their caliphate, Islamic State were beaten back by numerous local and foreign forces in both countries, suffering major defeats in 2017.
However, the jihadists remain a menace. In Iraq they have gone to ground, staging waves of killings and kidnappings. In Syria, their comrades hold out in remote desert areas and have carried out bombings in areas controlled by the SDF.
Source: Reuters.