IS suicide bombers attack crowds fleeing last redoubt
BAGHOUZ, Syria: The Islamic State group launched three suicide attacks outside their last redoubt in eastern Syria Friday, killing six people among those fleeing the crumbling jihadist bastion.
They were the latest casualties in Syria’s devastating civil war, which entered its ninth year on Friday with 370,000 dead.
All that remains of a oncesprawling proto-state that the IS jihadists declared in 2014 is a battered riverside camp in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, and warplanes of a US-led coalition backing them, have rained fire on the enclave since Sunday, blitzing thousands of IS members into surrender.
The exodus of veiled women, dusty children, and wounded men had been peaceful in recent days.
But on Friday three suicide bombers blew themselves up on the way out, an SDF spokesman said.
“A suicide bomber hid among those fleeing and blew himself up, killing at least six of those who wanted to get out” of Baghouz, Jiaker Amed said.
Two others blew themselves up near SDF positions, causing only light wounds among the fighters, he said.
Before the attacks, SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said “a large number” of IS members had surrendered to the US-backed forces.
Earlier in the day, Amed said SDF fighters were consolidating their positions as they expected more people to stumble out.
It was however unclear how many remained inside.
“There are a lot of suicide bombers but there are also families and children,” he said before the attacks.
The front was largely calm earlier in the day.
A reporter heard intermittent gun and artillery fire and war planes overhead.
Dozens of metres from what remains of the group’s embattled encampment, she saw tents and scorched cars, but no human movement where a week before there had been people.
Since the months-old SDF offensive resumed on March 10, more than 4,000 suspected IS members and their relatives have surrendered, according to the SDF. — AFP
A suicide bomber hid among those fleeing and blew himself up, killing at least six of those who wanted to get out. — Jiaker Amed, SDF spokesman