Daesh fights to hang on a year after defeat in Iraq

A year after it was routed from Iraq in a devastating war that left entire neighborhoods and towns in ruins, Daesh is fighting to hang on to its last enclave in eastern Syria, engaging in deadly battles with US-backed forces.

Cornered in the desert near the Iraqi border with nowhere to run, the militants are putting up a fierce fight, inflicting hundreds of casualties among their opponents and releasing a stream of beheading videos reminiscent of the extremist group’s terrifying propaganda at the height of its power.

The battle for Hajjin has dragged on for three months, highlighting the difficulty of eradicating an extremist group determined to survive. In Iraq, there is rising concern that the group may stage a comeback.

Daesh sleeper cells have recently launched deadly attacks against security forces and kidnapped and killed civilians, mostly in four northern and central provinces that were once part of the group’s self-declared caliphate.

“There is still major danger for Iraq and Syria especially in areas close to the border when it comes to Daesh,” a senior Iraqi grounding coalition aircraft, allowing the militants to launch counteroffensives that have killed hundreds of SDF fighters. Daesh has also taken scores of prisoners and hundreds of civilians hostage.

“It is very difficult because we are in the last stages, where almost every Daesh fighter is a suicide belt,” Brett McGurk, the White House envoy for the war against Daesh, said at a security conference held recently in the Gulf nation of Bahrain.

The extremists, besieged near the border, have no place to go. They are surrounded from the east and north by SDF fighters while from the south and west, Syrian government forces and their allies have closed roads to the surrounding desert.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says since the fighting began nearly three months ago, 1,616 people have been killed, mostly fighters from both sides. It said the dead include 827 Daesh gunmen, 481 SDF fighters and 308 civilians.

The fighting is now believed to be in its final stages, with SDF fighters said to have broken Daesh defenses and taken the fight inside the town.