Victory will be declared after Daesh area is searched: SDF

baghouz (syria) — US-backed Syrian forces were sweeping on Thursday through the final enclave that had been held by Daesh fighters, and said they would declare the group defeated once a search for hidden mines and militant holdouts was complete.

“Our forces are still conducting combing and search operations and as soon as they are finished we will announce the liberation,” Mustafa Bali, spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, said in a note to journalists.

Bali said the operation included sweeping for mines and combing for fighters still hidden in trenches and tunnels beneath Baghouz, the last patch of Daesh territory.

The last clashes reported by the SDF were on Tuesday, indicating that major fighting is over in the last big battle of a five year international campaign against the terrorist group that once controlled a third of both Iraq and Syria.

The SDF, backed by US air power, swept on Tuesday into a camp where hundreds of fighters had been making their last stand with thousands of civilians, many their own wives and children.

The situation in Baghouz appeared calm for a second consecutive day, a journalist in Baghouz said. Warplanes with the US-led coalition, including drones, could be seen overhead.

A news outlet with close ties to the Syrian Kurdish-led authorities, Hawar, reported that the operation was now finished and Daesh defeated. But an SDF denial swiftly made clear it was not quite prepared to declare victory yet.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) said that another 2,000 women and children had arrived late on Wednesday at the Al Hol camp in northeastern Syria that has received tens of thousands of people who have poured out of the shrinking Daesh territory. —