SDF poised to resume operations against ISIS

A US-backed coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters said yesterday that it would resume a military campaign against ISIS militants in eastern Syria, after temporarily halting operations more than 10 days ago.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, backed by US-coalition warplanes, launched an offensive against the last major militant holdout in the country in September, but Turkish shelling of Kurdish-held territory in Syria late last month prompted fighters to pause operations on October 31.

The SDF said it was resuming the anti-ISIS campaign after diplomatic efforts succeeded in defusing tensions along the Syrian-Turkish border and allowed parties to refocus efforts on the battle against ISIS in Syria’s east.

It also said the decision came after “intensive contacts” with the US-led coalition, which has stepped up air strikes on the militant-controlled Hajin pocket in recent weeks despite the pause.

On Saturday, Brett McGurk, the US special envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition, said on Twitter that coalition forces were preparing “to accelerate operations in east Syria”.

Col Sean Ryan, the coalition’s spokesman, said coalition forces on Friday destroyed an ISIS observation post and staging area in the Hajin pocket.

He said on Twitter that there were no civilians in the area but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed Friday’s air strikes killed more than 33 people, mostly wives and children of ISIS fighters. More than 600 ISIS militants and nearly 350 SDF fighters had reportedly been killed in clashes since September, the Observatory said yesterday.

The monitoring group also claimed more than 120 civilians, mostly children and wives of ISIS fighters, had been killed by the SDF and the US-led coalition in the Hajin pocket over that same period.

The Hajin enclave is the last significant remnant of ISIS’s so-called caliphate which the militants announced in 2014. The rest has all been lost to offensives by alliances in Syria and Iraq.

Outside the Hajin enclave, the group’s operatives are confined to sleeper cells and to hideouts in unpopulated desert and mountain areas.