Final ISIS stronghold in eastern Syria sees fierce battle
BEIRUT — Islamic State group militants cornered in their last foothold in eastern Syria fought back with suicide car bombs, snipers and booby traps Monday, slowing Kurdish fighters advancing under the cover of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, Kurdish news agencies and a Syrian war monitor said.
An Italian photographer was wounded in the clashes between the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and the militants holed up in the village of Baghouz, near the border with Iraq, an Italian news agency reported.
No one knows exactly how many Islamic State fighters are still holding out in the sliver of territory under attack, although they are estimated to be in the hundreds, most of them foreign fighters. It is also unclear if civilians are still inside, caught under heavy bombardment.
The SDF on Saturday launched its final push to clear the area from ISIS, after months of fighting that saw 20,000 civilians fleeing just in the past few weeks. The numbers have overwhelmed Kurdish-run camps in northeastern Syria, where humanitarian conditions are already dire amid a cold winter and meager resources.
The capture of the ISIS-held village of Baghouz and nearby areas would mark the culmination of a devastating four-year global war to end the ISIS extremists’ territorial hold over large parts of Syria and Iraq, where the group established its self-proclaimed “caliphate” in 2014. That in turn, would open the way for President Donald Trump to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from northern Syria as he has promised to do once the Islamic State group has been defeated.
“The U.S. will soon control 100% of ISIS territory in Syria,” Trump tweeted Sunday. He has said repeatedly that he doesn’t want the U.S. to be the world’s policeman and that he intends to bring the 2,000 U.S. troops home.
U.S. officials and Trump’s own military advisers, however, have warned that losing its territorial hold does not mean the Islamic State group is defeated, cautioning that ISIS could stage a comeback in Syria within six months to a year if the military and counterterrorism pressure on it is eased.
In recent weeks, U.S. officials have said ISIS has lost 99.5 percent of its territory and controls under 2 square miles, where most of the fighters are concentrated in Syria. But activists and residents say ISIS still has sleeper cells in Syria and Iraq and is laying the groundwork for an insurgency.
Assad Bechara, a Lebanese political analyst, said the Islamic State group is an ideology, not just a military structure, and it cannot be defeated simply by reclaiming territory from the group.
“This [American] pullout will leave a huge vacuum despite the allegations of defeating the last pockets of ISIS. This vacuum will increase the international and regional struggle for power and influence in Syria,” he said, which in turn may make it easier for the militant group to return.
It is not clear how long the final push to free Baghouz from ISIS will take. Trump said last week he had been told that the full territorial conquest to defeat the Islamic State could be completed in the coming week.
But progress appears to be slower than what SDF officials had initially estimated. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said SDF were moving very slowly due to land mines and sniper fire, as well as the extremists’ use of tunnels and suicide car bombs. ISIS also is using civilians as human shields, the observatory said.
On Monday, the observatory reported that 13 ISIS militants, including five suicide attackers, were killed as well as six SDF fighters. The Kurdish Hawar news agency also reported heavy fighting in Baghouz.
ISIS said in a statement that two of its “martyrdom-seekers” attacked SDF fighters in Baghouz with their explosive-laden car.
Syrian state media claimed a U.S.-led coalition airstrike near Baghouz killed two women and two children. More than 20,000 civilians have left the ISIS-held area in recent weeks.