Isil driven from last town after fierce fighting

Democratic force raises flag over final stronghold but warns that an attack by Turkey could aid jihadists

THE last Syrian town under Isil control fell yesterday, marking a defeat for the jihadists from which it will be difficult to come back.

The flag of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the US and Uk-backed fighters battling Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), was raised in the central square in Hajin, eastern Deir Ezzor province, yesterday.

The Kurdish-dominated SDF faced one of their toughest battles of the war, as the nondescript town became the site of Isil’s last major stand in Syria.

“Just about every Daesh [Arabic acronym for Isil] we came across had a suicide belt,” said one commander involved in the battle.

“They saw it as end of days and were using every weapon they had.”

Isil is thought to have only a few hundred militants holding out in villages around Hajin and the small sliver of land left between Syria and Iraq. Most of Isil’s remaining senior leaders had been in the town in recent months, but it is not clear whether they were killed or managed to escape to desert land along the border before the SDF established its chokehold.

All recent US intelligence suggested Abu Bakr al-baghdadi, Isil’s leader, was alive and hiding out among the group’s final vestiges.

“This was always going to be a fight to the death,” Nouri Mahmoud, spokesman for the Syrian Kurdish militia, known as People’s Protection Units or YPG, the main component of SDF, told The Daily Telegraph during a visit to northern Syria. “A lot of senior fighters and commanders had spent months preparing for this fight and were not about to give up.”

The operation in Hajin was launched on Sept 10 and took a heavy toll, according to figures collected by the Ukbased monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. At least 900 jihadists and 500 SDF fighters were killed in the fighting, researchers said.

Isil launched a particularly deadly counterattack in early November, when the jihadists used the cover of a sandstorm to overrun an SDF base and capture dozens of fighters.

The battle was then briefly paused after Turkey, which considers the YPG a terrorist group because of its organisational links to the insurgent Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), began shelling Kurdish troops over the border. Fresh Turkish threats could jeopardise the last stage of the SDF offensive.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, warned this week that his military was planning a new assault on the Kurds – this time to the east of the Euphrates river.

A spokesman for the Turkish-backed opposition National Army said up to 15,000 Syrian rebels were ready to join Turkey’s forces.

The US, which has warned Turkey against such a move, will have to decide whether to back the Kurds and risk confrontation with a Nato ally, or effectively give Turkey a green light to carry out the assault.

The Kurds have warned that any attack by Turkish forces would distract the SDF from the battle against Isil, which could risk giving the jihadists the opportunity to attempt to regroup in Deir Ezzor province.

Brett Mcgurk, the US anti-isil envoy, also cautioned earlier this week that the “battle against [Isil] in the Middle Euphrates Valley” was not over yet.

“It’s going to take time, but it will get done,” Mr Mcgurk said. “It’s a very difficult campaign.”

The Trump administration has said it will remain in Syria for as long as it takes to defeat Isil, but there are doubts that the SDF has the manpower and resources to keep control of the vast territory it has captured if the US were to pull out.

‘Just about every Daesh had a suicide belt. They saw it as end of days and were using every weapon they had’