IS cornered, unbowed in its last stronghold
In Baghuz, a single black flag fluttered yesterday in a light afternoon breeze above wrecked vehicles and improvised tents – the last Islamic State banner flying over the last of its territory east of the Euphrates.
The final slice of the terror group’s ‘‘caliphate’’ was braced for a fresh assault from Western-backed forces, who relaunched their stalled offensive against Islamic State.
After years of hard fighting, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led alliance, have boxed IS into a tiny triangle of land next to the village of Baghuz, a rural settlement on the fertile banks of the Euphrates river.
But for the past week, the battle has been locked in a frustrating stalemate.
Bound by high cliffs to the south, the river to the west, and by SDF positions in the wrecked houses of the village to the north and east, the jihadists have nowhere left to run.
And their capacity to mount the audacious and deadly counter-attacks they are infamous for has been broken.
However, with dedicated fighters packed in among an unknown number of civilians, the SDF was forced to pause or risk colossal collateral damage.
‘‘We can’t advance anymore. There is just not more space between fighters and civilians,’’ an SDF fighter, watching IS positions from 200m away, said yesterday.
‘‘It is impossible to go any further. The fighters are living with their families. There is no way to discriminate between them and the women and children,’’ he said.
‘‘The only thing to do is wait for them to come out.’’
But SDF and coalition commanders appeared to lose patience last night.
Hours after The Daily Telegraph saw the IS flag flying, airstrikes lit up the sky as coalition jets struck targets within the shanty town after sunset. ‘‘Our forces are now clashing with the terrorists and the attack started,’’ said Mustafa Bali, the head of the SDF media office.
Bali said no civilians had emerged since Sunday and that the SDF had not seen any more civilians in the pocket.
However, The Telegraph saw at least two women, and several other figures moving inside IS-controlled territory yesterday afternoon.
There are only a dozen or so low, flat-topped concrete buildings in IS’s last stronghold.
IS members leaving the pocket this week told The Telegraph that people avoid staying in the buildings because they tend to be targeted by air raids or missile strikes.
Instead, people are living in a sea of improvised huts and tents dotted among what were once fields and pomegranate orchards.
– Telegraph Group