Baladi News
The Isis caliphate has been reduced to a few dozen tents in a small village in eastern Syria, where several hundred fighters are hiding among civilians.
Dozens of hardened Isis members have surrendered over the past few days as the group has been surrounded in an orchard in the village of Baghouz, in Deir ez-Zor. Families, too, have filed out of the camped settlement, realising the end is near.
But some jihadis are choosing to fight to the end, and they are preventing civilians still living there from leaving. Some 1,600 women and children remain in the last area under Isis control, according to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the US-backed force leading the battle. Most of them are thought to be family members of Isis militants.
Around 54 tents, set up to house civilians still remaining in the Isis-held territory, are now all that remains. Grainy images of the scene from Wednesday show a collection of ramshackle tents with women in abayas moving among them, a handful of vehicles scattered around.
Fighting was paused overnight on Wednesday to allow the holdouts a chance to surrender, but that deadline has now passed and a final offensive is expected to be launched soon.
“The operation is coming toward an end, and the eradication of Isis,” said Adnan Afrin, the Syrian Democratic Forces commander in charge of the Baghouz offensive.
“Two days ago we were talking about kilometres, yesterday we said a square kilometre, but today it’s even less. Now, we talk about hundreds of square metres,” he told the Rojava Information Centre.
Source: Independent.