Final assault against Daesh remnants

SDF LAUNCH OFFENSIVE TO EXPEL TERRORISTS FROM DEIR AL ZOR

US-backed forces were locked in fierce fighting yesterday as they pressed the battle against the last shred of the Daesh group’s “caliphate” in eastern Syria.

The terrorists overran large parts of the country and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, but various military offensives have since reduced that territory to a patch on the Iraqi border.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), supported by a US-led coalition, announced a final push to retake the terrorist pocket late on Saturday, after a pause of more than a week to allow civilians to flee.

Heavy clashes

An SDF field commander said fighting was ongoing yesterday morning.

“There are heavy clashes at the moment. We have launched an assault and the fighters are advancing,” he told AFP.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor group said coalition planes and artillery bombarded terrorist positions.

“The battle is ongoing. There were heavy clashes this morning, with landmines going off,” said Rami Abdul Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Observatory.

The SDF launched an offensive to expel Daesh from the oil-rich eastern province of Deir Al Zor in September.

The Kurdish-led alliance has since whittled down terrorist-held territory to a scrap of just four square kilometres on the eastern banks of the Euphrates.

Up to 600 terrorists could still remain inside, most of them foreigners, according to SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali.

Since fighting intensified in December, more than 37,000 people, mostly wives and children of extremist fighters, have fled into SDF-held desert areas, the Observatory says.