Syrian civilians leave last Isis enclave PAGE 13
Young girls and boys stared out of the backs of trucks, their faces dirty, their eyes filled with terror, exhaustion and uncertainty, as hundreds of men, women and children were evacuated from the Islamic State group’s last enclave in eastern Syria yesterday.
The evacuation may signal an imminent end to the territorial rule of the militants’ self-declared ‘‘caliphate’’, which once stretched across much of Syria and Iraq.
Their condition pointed to the squalor that Isis has been reduced to in the tiny tent camp on the banks of the Euphrates River.
Food and water have been running out in the pocket, where about 300 militants along with hundreds of civilians – believed to be mostly their families – have been under siege for more than a week by United States-backed forces. Conditions are so bad that at least 60 people previously evacuated subsequently died of malnutrition or exhaustion.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces surrounding the enclave have been unable to carry out a final assault because of the presence of the civilians.
It was unclear how yesterday’s organised evacuation was possible. SDF officials did not say how many people were in the convoy or how many remained in the pocket.
Adnan Afrin, an SDF spokesman, said several Isis fighters were hiding among the civilians being evacuated, and were later arrested.
SDF officials said clashes overnight, air strikes and special operations facilitated the movement of the hundreds of civilians toward exits already designated by the SDF and trucks that had been sent for them.
The enclave’s recapture would spell the territorial defeat of Isis and allow US President Donald Trump to begin withdrawing American troops from northern Syria, as he has pledged to do, opening a new chapter in Syria’s eight-year civil war.
Few believe, however, that ending the group’s territorial rule will end the threat posed by an organisation that still stages and inspires attacks through sleeper cells in both Syria and Iraq.
In recent weeks, nearly 20,000 people have walked for hours through a humanitarian corridor to exit the militants’ last patch of territory. Many paid smugglers, and some have come under fire from the militants for attempting to leave. Evacuations were halted last week when the militants closed all the roads out of the tiny area.
Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the SDF, said the militants had two options – surrender, or ‘‘the battle will continue to the end’’.
–AP