As Isis falls, all eyes are on the Euphrates

IRAQI FORCES were this week closing in on the last pockets of resistance in Mosul, the city held for two years by Isis. In Syria, the next big battle for Daesh’s headquarters in Raqqa is beginning, but the focus is already moving to the location of what is expected to be Islamic State’s last stand: the wide valley of the Euphrates river, which runs all the way from northern Syria into Iraq.

The battle for the Euphrates Valley will be about much more than denying Isis its last major stronghold.

This strategic area is about to become a vital target for a large cast of players with conflicting interests.

For Daesh, losing the Euphrates towns of Deir a-Zor, Mayadin, Al Bukamal and Al-Qaim will mean it has no bases to train its fighters, no shelter and no financial base. Once ejected, it will have completed its transition to from a caliphate with large territories and cities to a more elusive jihadist movement, seeking to bed down in terror cells around the world.

But no less important is the question of which forces capture the Euphrates from Daesh. Whoever holds the valley will also control the Syria-Iraq border. The Assad regime wants to be there as, without that region, it will effectively retain control only of part of western Syria. Iran needs it to complete its “Shi’a crescent” — the land corridor it hopes to control through its proxies running from Iran to the Mediterranean. Israel and the US are anxious to prevent Iran from realising its goal and are pinning their hopes on two rebel forces slowly closing in on the Euphrates Valley. From the south, there is a coalition of Sunni rebel groups, backed by the US and Jordan. To the north are the mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, which have US support and are advancing on Raqqa.

The Euphrates valley connects the Kurdish region in northern Syria with Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government, which will be holding an independence referendum in late September. The prospect of an independent Kurdish state is something the regimes of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey will fight tooth-and-nail to prevent.

The battle of the Euphrates has begun. Syrian and Russian aircraft bombard both Daesh and the rebels on a daily basis, and Western intelligence agencies believe the regime was planning a chemical attack as well, though they were warned off by the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, as the different sides jockey for position, Iranian-led Shi’a militias have tried to attack the rebels in the south. This is just the beginning. The Euphrates Valley could turn into the biggest prize of the war, and everyone wants a crack at it.