Us-backed fighters break into Daesh holdout in Syria

BEIRUT: Us-backed Syrian ighters have broken into an eastern holdout of the Daesh group on the Iraqi border, a commander and a monitor said on Thursday, months into an anti-militant offensive.

A Kurdish-led alliance, backed by air strikes of the Us-led coalition, has been battling to oust Daesh from the pocket in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor since September.

But the Syrian Democratic Forces suffered a series of setbacks, including due to a vicious fightback by militants and bad weather that impeded visibility.

On Thursday, an SDF commander said the alliance had managed to break into the pocket and wrest part of its main town from Daesh.

“Heavy clashes are ongoing inside the town of Hajin, after our forces advanced inside and started to control some of its neighbourhoods,” Redur Khalil told AFP.

The SDF opened up humanitarian corridors out of the beleaguered pocket, allowing more than 1,000 civilians — mostly woman and children — to flee from Hajin in the past few days.

Khalil accused Daesh of using civilians as human shields, and said the corridors would remain open.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the SDF launched an attack on Tuesday and than dozens of families had managed to lee.

The attack was backed by the heaviest shelling and air strikes by the Us-led coalition since the start of the offensive on the Hajin pocket on Sept.10, Observatory chief Rami Abdelrahman said.

Since Tuesday, 34 militants including three suicide bombers, and 17 SDF ighters have been killed in the ighting, the Observatory said.