US-backed fighters launch final push to defeat IS in Syria

QAMISHLI, Syria — US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian forces said on Saturday they have launched a final push to defeat the Islamic State group in the last tiny pocket the extremists hold in eastern Syria.

Syrian Democratic Forces spokesman Mustafa Bali tweeted that the offensive began on Saturday after more than 20,000 civilians were evacuated from the ISheld area in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. An SDF statement said the offensive was focused on the village of Baghouz.

The SDF, backed by US air power, has driven IS from large swathes of territory it once controlled in northern and eastern Syria, confining the extremists to a small pocket of land near the border with Iraq.

Scores of IS extremists are now besieged in two villages, or less than once percent of the self-styled caliphate that once sprawled across large parts of Syria and Iraq. In recent weeks, thousands of civilians, including families of IS extremists, left the area controlled by the extremists.

“The decisive battle began tonight to finish what remains of Daesh terrorists,” Bali said, using an Arabic acronym to refer to the IS group.

“The battle is very fierce,” he later said. “Those remaining inside are the most experienced who are defending their last stronghold. According to this you can imagine the ferocity and size of the fighting.”

Bali did not say how long they expect the battle to last.

Observers said SDF fighters are advancing “cautiously” due to mines planted by IS gunmen. It said US-led coalition warplanes are giving cover to advancing SDF fighters.

US President Donald Trump predicted on Wednesday that the IS group will have lost all of its territory by next week.

“It should be formally announced sometime, probably next week, that we will have 100 percent of the caliphate,” Trump told representatives of the 79-member, US-led coalition fighting the IS group.

Near the battlefield, an SDF spokesman at the Omar oilfield turned military base said “progress is slow”.

He said that when the SDF detects movement from IS fighters, they bomb them, but added: “There have not been any major changes.”

Bali, of the SDF, said that “in the last two months, most who handed themselves in or were arrested were foreign”.

The SDF launched an operation to expel the IS group from Deir Ezzor in September, and has slowly advanced against IS despite the extremists putting up a fierce fightback.

In that time, more than 1,200 IS militants, more than 670 SDF fighters, and around 400 civilians have been killed in the fighting, observers said.

The Kurdish People’s Protection Units and their female equivalent, the Women’s Protection Units, have formed the backbone of the SDF.