No easy way to defeat the IS

Tunnels and landmines bolster last militant Syria stronghold

Omar Oil Field: Kurdish-led forces cleared landmines and searched for tunnels blocking their advance on the final patch of an east Syria village defended by a few hundred Islamic State militants.

Rain and concern for civilians trapped in IS’s last redoubt were delaying a push that would wipe out the last shred of the militant once-sprawling “caliphate”.

US President Donald Trump had said that he will “announce the end of the militant proto-state very, very soon”.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) closed in on the holdout militant since September last year and a few hundred surviving IS members are now boxed into an area of around one square kilometre.

“The large number of landmines and tunnels is hindering attempts by the SDF to secure complete control over the area,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.

Diehard militants were still launching sporadic attacks on SDF positions around their last stronghold in Baghouz, near the banks of the Euphrates river.

“IS fighters are refusing to hand themselves over and are still putting up a fight.

“We do not know what the point of this is,” SDF spokesman Adnan Afrin said.

Speaking to AFP in Al-Omar oil field, the SDF’s main staging area, he said this week the militants used ambushes and motorbike bombs to inflict casualties on the SDF.

The UK-based Observatory said the corpses of 26 IS fighters were found by SDF troops on Thursday alone as they combed the area before resuming their advance.

An official declaration of victory against IS is expected in the coming days, a move of mostly symbolic value that will go down as the death certificate of the “caliphate”.

Estimates vary on the number of fighters and families left inside the last IS pocket but accounts from women who escaped with their children in recent days suggest some civilians are left inside.

“To avoid any harm to the wives and children of IS fighters, we are forced to be cautious,” Afrin said.

Close to 40,000 people have left the militants’ dwindling enclave in recent weeks, in the latest humanitarian emergency of an eight-year conflict that has killed 360,000 people and displaced 11 million.

Those who flee Baghouz have a perilous journey to the nearest SDFheld collection point, dodging booby traps and sniper fire.

IS fighters are refusing to hand themselves over and are still putting up a fight. We don’t know what the point of this is.

Adnan Afrin