Islamic State trapped in last patch of land in Syria
Freeing Baghouz would end terror in the country, says US
NEARBAGHOUZ, SYRIA: Islamic State group jihadists using tunnels and suicide bombers mounted a desperate defence on Thursday of their last square kilometre of land in eastern Syria.
Kurdish-led forces closed in on the small town of Baghouz where IS fighters and their relatives were hunkered down and met famished and dishevelled people turning themselves in. “The fighting is fierce,” said Adnan Afrin, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-Arab outfit that has spearheaded the campaign against IS with backing from a US-led coalition.
“There is significant resistance,” he told AFP in Al-Omar oil field, the main staging base for the SDF’s offensive against the very last shred of the original IS “caliphate”. The few hundred fighters of various nationalities holding out in their last bastion by the Iraqi border have launched bruising counter-attacks in recent days, Afrin said.
The jihadists are clinging to about one square kilometre in the town’s built-up area, as well as to an adjacent camp, where a number of civilians are believed to be gathered. Afrin said it was impossible to provide accurate figures but he estimated the total number of fighters, men and women, at around 1,000.
“There are many tunnels in Baghouz now. This is why the operation is dragging on. There are many suicide bombers attacking our positions, with explosives-laden cars and motorbikes,” he said. Afrin said two such suicide attacks were carried out by women on Tuesday but he would not provide any figures on casualties among SDF ranks.
People continued to trickle out of the last IS redoubt every day.