DAESH tunnels under al-Bab point to hard fighting ahead
‘No imminent risk to Syria’s dam’
AL-BAB, Syria, March 27, (RTRS): Syrian rebels who drove Islamic State from the town of al-Bab in northwest Syria this year discovered an extensive network of tunnels dug by militants as part of their defences, a tactic that has slowed the military campaign against them.
“The tunnels complicated the fighting a lot and stopped our advance for weeks,” said Mohammed Abu Yousef, a rebel in a group fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army as part of a Turkey-backed military campaign in north Syria.
FSA rebels in al-Bab said they had found about 15 km (9 miles) of tunnels under the town that had linked its central areas and jihadist headquarter buildings with the town’s fringes and battle fronts.
Islamic State has been steadily forced from much of its Syrian territory since late 2015. It has lost all its land along the border with Turkey as well as the desert city of Palmyra as it is repelled into its strongholds along the Euphrates basin.
It is under assault from three rival forces: FSA rebels backed by Turkey, Syria’s army supported by Russia, Iran and Shi’ite militias, and the Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella for Kurdish-led groups supported by a US-led coalition.
A spokesman for the US-led coalition against Islamic State described the militants’ use of tunnels in several different cities as “a challenge for our partner forces” and meant to allow them to “move undetected”.
In one tunnel, a little over a metre (yard) wide and high enough to allow a man to stand upright, the walls and ceiling were covered with chicken wire and an electrical cable ran above with light bulbs occasionally dangling down.
The fighting to take al-Bab lasted for weeks in January and February, costing many lives as Turkish jets and armour pummelled Islamic State positions in the town and FSA groups tried to capture ground.
Evidence of the battle can be seen in its rubble-strewn streets. In one district, houses were partially collapsed from fighting and bombardment and the large aluminium water tank from a building’s roof lay on its side, dotted with bullet holes.
“When we entered an area and ensured it was clear of DAESH fighters they would suddenly appear behind us using the tunnels and they killed a lot of our people by outflanking them this way,” said Abu Yousef, using an acronym for Islamic State.
His fellow rebels infiltrated some of the tunnels themselves to ambush the jihadists and blew up others to prevent them being used, he said.
Some of the tunnels came out inside buildings in the town, including one that residents told rebels had previously been used by Islamic State for a prison.
Abu Yousef said residents told rebels that the tunnels were dug using pneumatic drills over a period of months. Inside some tunnels were ventilation shafts and rest points with mattresses and bedding.
At a high point overlooking al Bab, a narrow gash in the ground revealed the sloped opening to a tunnel near pitted concrete pillars of a damaged building from which hung slabs of roof, with twisted steel rebars poking out from the sides.
Meanwhile, the US-led coalition said on Monday it saw no imminent danger to a major hydroelectric dam that allied Syrian militias are fighting to take from Islamic State, unless the jihadists planned to blow it up.
It spoke after a senior Syrian government official warned on Sunday that the Tabqa Dam had already been damaged by US-led air strikes targeting Islamic State and cited an increasing risk of catastrophic flooding and collapse.
For its part, Islamic State said on Sunday that the dam’s operating systems were not working properly and it was vulnerable to collapse.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters, paused operations for four hours on Monday to allow engineers to inspect the Euphrates Dam at Tabqa, a major target in their campaign to encircle and capture Islamic State’s biggest urban stronghold of Raqqa.
An SDF spokeswoman said the dam should be fully captured within days after the forces took its northern entrance last week. Raqqa city is located around 40 km (25 miles) downstream on the Euphrates river to the east.
A Kurdish leader separately told Reuters he expected Raqqa to eventually become part of a new system of federal government being set up by Kurdish groups and their allies, a step certain to deepen Turkish concern about rising Kurdish power in Syria.
The SDF, which includes the Kurdish YPG militia, has been closing in on Raqqa since November with support from coalition air strikes and US special forces on the ground. The YPG has said a final assault on the city will begin in early April.
Captured
Neighbouring Turkey opposes the Kurdish role in Raqqa, and has been lobbying Washington to take part itself. Washington says no decision has been taken on when and how Raqqa will be captured, even as the SDF approaches the city.
The SDF seized Tabqa air base on Sunday, the first such facility to fall under the control of Syrian Kurdish militias and their allies that now control swathes of northern Syria after six years of multi-sided civil war.
The SDF says it will repair and use the base.
The SDF’s Raqqa campaign said in a statement the assault on the Tabqa Dam had been put on hold for four hours following a request by the Syrian government’s water authority.
The SDF later said there was no damage or “malfunction” at the dam. The US-led coalition said that “to our knowledge, the dam has not been structurally damaged”.
“We do not assess the dam to be in imminent danger unless ISIS plans to destroy it,” said Colonel Joseph Scrocca, a spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State, using another acronym for IS.
“The SDF are in control of a spillway north of the dam that provides water to an irrigation reclamation canal which can be used to alleviate pressure on the dam if need be. If the lake reaches dangerous levels the SDF can relieve the pressure through alternative means.”
The director of the Syrian government agency that formerly operated the dam has blamed US air strikes for damage to internal control systems at the dam that had put it out of service.
Syria’s government earlier this month warned of a “looming catastrophe”, saying the dam at Tabqa and another further north were being targeted by the US-led aerial campaign.
The SDF and coalition have denied this.
The United Nations has also flagged concerns about the dam, warning in February of a risk of disastrous flooding, citing risks from high water levels, deliberate sabotage by Islamic State and further damage from coalition air strikes.
The dam stretches 4.5 km (2.8 miles) across the Euphrates river. Islamic State captured the dam and air base at the height of its expansion in Syria and Iraq in 2014.
“Our forces are advancing in a way to ensure the safety of the dam,” Jihan Sheikh Ahmed, the SDF spokeswoman for the Raqqa campaign, said via a social messaging site.
“Islamic State will put up fierce resistance, especially since the dam is strategic,” she said, but the dam “will be liberated in a short period of time ... This relates to the developments of the battle, but it should happen within days.”