Iraqi forces closing in on last Islamic State town

ERBIL: Iraqi forces launched an offensive yesterday to capture Rawa, the last remaining town under Islamic State control, leaving the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate on the verge of complete defeat.

The capture of the town would mark the end of IS’s era of territorial rule over a so-called caliphate that it proclaimed in 2014 across vast swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Syria’s army declared victory over the militants on Thursday, after seizing the last substantial town on the border with Iraq.

The army and its allies were fighting IS in desert areas near Albu Kamal, the last town the militant group had held in Syria.

Two Iraqi infantry divisions and Sunni tribal forces are participating in the offensive to recapture Rawa and its surrounding areas along the border with Syria, the Joint Operations Command said.

Last week, Iraqi forces recaptured the larger town of al-Qaim, in what Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called “record time”, leaving just a few small pockets of land in IS’s hands.

IS group fighters conducted a blistering counter-attack on Albu Kamal in eastern Syria on Friday in a desperate bid to cling to the last urban bastion of their imploding “caliphate”.

The jihadists punched back into the town they had lost a day earlier and swiftly retook several northern neighbourhoods, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

“IS started counterattacking on Thursday night and retook more than 40 per cent of the town of Albu Kamal,” Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britainbased Observatory, said.

Syrian regime forces and allied fighters had retaken the town, which lies on the border with Iraq in the eastern Deir Ezzor province, from the jihadists on Thursday.

“The jihadists went back in and retook several neighbourhoods in the north, northeast and northwest,” Abdel Rahman said. “IS is trying to defend its last bastion.” Reuters