Fight to oust ISIS from Syria begins
The last vestige of Islamic State territory in Syria came under attack, as members of a U.S.-backed coalition said Tuesday that they had begun a final push to oust the militants from Hajin, the remaining sliver of territory under the group’s control in the region where it was born.
The assault is the final chapter of a war that began more than four years ago after the Islamic State group seized enormous tracts of land in Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-led militia that has been fighting the Islamic State in Syria with the United States and its allies, said in a statement that its forces had launched an offensive on the area from four sides Monday evening.
Even if it is defeated in Hajin, however, the Islamic State is likely to remain a powerful terrorist force.
Hajin does not look like much: On a bend of the Euphrates River in eastern Syria, it appears to have only a few major streets and just one public hospital. An estimated 60,000 people are believed to be living there. The Syrian Democratic Forces is nevertheless preparing for a slog: between two and three months, according to one senior official with the militia.
Given Hajin’s size, that may seem a surprisingly long time. Islamic State-held cities with populations one and a half to three times larger, including Sinjar and Tal Afar in Iraq, fell in days. The difference is that in those battles, the jihadis made a strategic retreat, choosing to abandon their positions to consolidate and regroup. This time, retreat is not an option.
“We expect a long and hard fight,” said Col. Sean J. Ryan, a spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition in Baghdad. “These are the die-hard fighters with nowhere else to go.”
The forces fighting the jihadis on the ground are a mix of Kurdish and Arab militias that have been working closely with an international coalition led by the United States.