Militants allowed to evacuate in battle for stronghold

BEIRUT — The U.S.led coalition and local officials said Saturday Syrian Islamic State fighters and civilians will be allowed to evacuate the city of Raqqa, in a deal that signals the imminent capture of the militant stronghold but flouts earlier U.S. protests of negotiating safe exits for the extremist group.

Foreign fighters will be excluded from the evacuation deal, the coalition said.

The U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said the final battle for Raqqa was under way, apparently propelled by negotiation efforts that secured the surrender and evacuation of scores of Syrian militants still holed up in the city.

In a statement, the U.S.-led coalition said a convoy of vehicles is set to leave Raqqa following the deal brokered by a local council formed by their Kurdish allies and Arab tribal leaders.

The tribal leaders said they appealed to the coalition and the SDF to allow the evacuation of local Islamic State fighters to stem further violence.

“Because our aim is liberation, not killing, we appealed to the SDF to arrange for the local fighters and secure their exit to outside of the city, with our guarantees,” the tribal leaders said in a statement.

It is not clear how many evacuees there are or where they will go, but the tribesmen said their evacuation would also save the lives of civilians the extremist fighters used as human shields. Last week, there was an estimated 4,000 civilians still in the city.

With the push to liberate the Arab-majority Raqqa led by Kurdishdominated forces, local officials fear a backlash once the city falls. The initiative appeared to be an attempt by local leaders to stem such tension.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the talks were bogged down over the fate of the foreign fighters there, which according to a local Kurdish commander include French, Russian, Azeri, Indonesian and Turkish combatants.

The Coalition said it “was not involved in the discussions that led to the arrangement, but believes it will save innocent lives and allow Syrian Democratic Forces and the Coalition to focus on defeating Daesh terrorists in Raqqah with less risk of civilian casualties.” Daesh is an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

The evacuation deal places the U.S. in a bind as it had earlier said that only surrender, not a negotiated withdrawal for Islamic State fighters in Raqqa, would be accepted.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday that the U.S. will accept the surrender of Islamic State militants who will be interrogated for intelligence purposes.

“Right now, as the bottom drops out from underneath (Islamic State), more and more of them are either surrendering — some are trying to surrender, and some amongst them — more fanatical ones — aren’t allowing them to,” he said.