US-backed fighters seek to oust DAESH from Deir Ezzor
Syria Kurds preparing 1st vote in ‘federal region’
SHADADI, Syria, Aug 26, (Agencies): US-backed Arab and Kurdish fighters said on Friday they would launch an offensive “very soon” to oust the Islamic State group from Syria’s oil-rich Deir Ezzor province.
The strategic territory is also seen as a prize by advancing Syrian troops, but an agreement between regime ally Russia and the US-led coalition is expected to keep the rival assaults from clashing.
The Deir Ezzor Military Council (DEMC), a coalition of Arab tribes and fighters that belongs to the broader US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, announced the upcoming offensive on Friday in northeast Syria.
“Our forces are preparing for the great battle of Deir Ezzor and unifying the tribes,” said DEMC head Ahmad Abu Khawlah in Shadai, some 60 kms (35 miles) south of Hasakeh.
He said at least 1,500 tribal fighters had joined the DEMC.
“There is no specific timeframe for the battle, but it will be very soon,” he said.
The SDF is currently waging a ferocious fight for IS’s de facto capital in Raqqa city, about 75 kms (50 miles) west of the administrative border with Deir Ezzor.
SDF fighters have seized some territory in Deir Ezzor province, but Russian-backed Syrian government forces have been making a mad dash towards the provincial capital of the same name.
Regime troops have swept across Syria’s desert to break IS’s two-year siege on tens of thousands of people trapped in Deir Ezzor city.
The US-led coalition has said that a “de-confliction line” has been set to prevent any “mishaps” between the two advancing forces.
Spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon told journalists this month that the line “has been coordinated and de-conflicted, and has been placed between the SDF and the regime and the Russians and the US”.
Abu Muhammad al-Shayti, who heads the DEMC’s Shaytat tribal unit, said on Friday that his fighters “will not target Deir Ezzor city, but the province”.
“Our forces are committed to what the coalition sees as fit — to fight Daesh (IS) only,” he said.
IS has lost swathes of territory to US-backed forces in the north and to Russian-backed Syrian troops in the country’s centre and east.
Moscow has said the recapture of Deir Ezzor could mark the conclusion of the battle against IS.
And the US-led coalition’s deputy head, British Major General Rupert Jones, said on Wednesday the final fight would probably take place in the stretch of border between Syria and Iraq.
“The expectation has always been that that would see DAESH increasingly squeezed into ... the middle Euphrates valley, and that is where the military defeat will be completed,” Jones said.
Meanwhile, Islamic State group militants pushed back government forces advancing on one of the last towns still in IS hands in the province of Raqqa, killing over two dozen soldiers and seizing vehicles, a Syria monitoring group and the extremists said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the early Friday counterattack by IS short-circuited a government advance on Maadan, which brought them within only a few kilometers (miles) in recent days.
The Russia-backed government forces have been on a multi-pronged offensive, moving toward the IS-held territories in Deir Ezzor province in the east from northern, central and southern Syria.
On Friday, the Russian military said its air force is now focusing on supporting the Syrian army’s offensive in Deir Ezzor. Syrian government forces control around half the city and a nearby air base, both of which are besieged by the IS militants.
Col Gen Sergei Rudskoi of the military’s General Staff said the Russian two-year campaign backing the Syrian government has allowed President Bashar Assad’s forces to quadruple the territory under their control.
At a news conference in Moscow, he said the area under Syrian government control has increased from 19,000 to 78,000 square kms (7,335 to 30,115 sq miles) since Russia launched its air campaign in September 2015. Russian pilots have flown more than 28,000 missions since the campaign’s launch, he said.
Rudskoi said Syrian government troops are advancing from three directions to encircle Deir Ezzor. “Breaking the blockade of the city will mark the defeat of the most capable part of the IS in Syria,” he said.
In other news, Syrian Kurdish authorities on Saturday began laying the groundwork for the first local elections in the federal system they are establishing in the country’s north, an official told AFP.
Hadiya Youssef, co-chair of the federal system’s constituent assembly, said three rounds of elections would be held starting in September.
“In this phase, we are outlining the electoral process by holding meetings with the local councils and societal stakeholders,” Youssef said on the sidelines of a summit in the Kurdishmajority city of Qamishli.
The meeting brought together Kurdish, Arab, Syriac and other parties to discuss how each of the three electoral phases would be managed.
The first round on Sept 22, according to Youssef, would see residents vote for representatives on the neighbourhood level.
Elections for executive councils for towns and regions are planned for November 3.
Then, on Jan 19, they would elect legislative councils for each of the three cantons, as well as a single joint legislative assembly.
“Every region will have its own legislative council, with the prerogative to set laws in the region as long as they do not contradict the social contract,” Youssef said.