Isil defies the bombardment to cling to its tiny caliphate
Viewed from above, Isil’s last stronghold looks like a cross between a scrapyard and a nightmarish parody of Glastonbury. From the observation post of the Syrian Democratic Force (SDF) on the clifftop overlooking Baghuz from the south, hundreds of vehicles can be seen nestled among a dense sea of tents and jerry-rigged infrastructure.
We were not allowed to stay long: the position has been targeted by Isil snipers and wire-guided missiles fired from the camp below. But this commanding height is the best – maybe the only place – from which to understand this arduous and increasingly puzzling battle.
To the left, the broad meander of the Euphrates cuts a silver trail through the Syrian Desert. A slender radio tower marks the regime-held city of al-bukamal. Ahead and to the right, a green carpet of fields and boxlike concrete villages extend northward up the fertile river valley.
Isil’s tiny kingdom is directly below, crammed into a few fields around a hamlet called Harse. Baghuz itself lies on the other side of that crowded space, its wrecked houses by now mostly in SDF hands.
It is a tiny patch of territory, and its continued existence is a mystery.
In the past two weeks, The Daily Telegraph has witnessed relentless airstrikes, ferocious night-time firefights, and mass surrenders of Isil fighters and their families.
In the same period, front-line commanders have promised that they could finish the place in a day, or just one night – or even in three hours. And yet the kilometre-wide caliphate is still there, its black flags still flying, and its members still strolling around its crazy car park or riding motorbikes through the fields.
Truth is, this battle is deadlocked. Kino Gabriel, an SDF spokesman, said: “We’ve tried twice. Twice we’ve gone in and twice we’ve pulled out. They’re using tunnels and it is impossible to know where they will appear from. OK, time is on our side but we do want to finish this.”
So why not simply get the coalition to flatten it with airstrikes?
“We’d have to wait for you to go home first. You’d eat us alive,” he said, at least half jokingly.
He meant the resulting slaughter of women and children would be condemned in the world’s media.
Perhaps so. But in the battle for Mosul in 2017 and 2018, coalition-backed forces showed no such scruples. Journalists who entered ruined neighbourhoods in the western side of the city described the stench of decaying bodies beneath the rubble.
Nonetheless, commanders have opted to slowly smother the caliphate until the last jihadists surrender. Thus, each night of intense bombardment is followed by days of relative inaction as those fighters and families who have had enough stream out. When that flow dries up, there is another assault – and the cycle continues.
Fresh troops rotating into the line on Friday expected to be there for 10 days. If there is to be a grand assault, they have not been told about it.
The delay gives rise to frustration, breeding rumour and speculation. Is the SDF reluctant to finish the battle for fear that Donald Trump might order US forces to leave eastern Syria? Is Isil more in control of the battlefield than its opponents? Why do coalition special forces, so prominent earlier in the campaign, appear to have stepped back from the battlefield?
Just about the only thing we can be certain of in this devastated corner of the Fertile Crescent is that there has been a remarkable failure of Western
‘Time is on our side but we do want to finish this’
intelligence. Despite satellite and drone surveillance, and intelligence from captured jihadists, Westernbacked forces have often underestimated the enemy strength.
“If you look at the aerial photos it looks empty. There is hardly anyone walking around,” said Adnan Afrin, the most senior commander journalists have access to here. “So we start fighting, and once again people start coming out.”
By the end of the first week of March, more than 20,000 men, women, and children had emerged.
The figure now must stand at 34,000, and there is little sign of the flow slowing as more women and a few dozen fighters were seen to be surrendering on Saturday.
Besides holding up the battle, the intelligence failure has almost certainly resulted in a loss of infant life. Under-prepared humanitarian groups struggled to cope with the number of malnourished and sick women and children emerging.
Commander Afrin guesses people must have been crammed hundreds to a room, and has stopped giving estimates of enemy strength. “If I say 100 it could well turn out to be 1,000,” he said.
A possible explanation is that Isil is using a complex warren of fighting tunnels – a tactic the group has used effectively elsewhere. But even that is questionable. Baghuz stands on a low-lying flood plain, presumably with a water table that would present challenges to extensive digging. And front-line unit commanders have reported only relatively modest earthworks – short, shallow tunnels connecting one house to another – but no Viet Cong-style labyrinths.
But Commander Afrin said any entrances discovered have been sealed but not explored, so nothing can be ruled out. But he did dismiss the rumoured existence of a six-mile tunnel under the border into Iraq’s Anbar province. “They’d run out of oxygen,” he reasoned.
For now, then, the battle of Baghuz is in a kind of limbo.
On the hilltop overlooking the town yesterday, SDF snipers carefully scanned the ground below as coalition jets roared overheard and, a few hundred metres away, more fighters and women climbed the rocky path up the escarpment to register their surrender.
Isil remains a deadly and psychotic enemy. On Friday, a firefight erupted after three surrendering prisoners, including a woman, detonated suicide belts – killing six fellow prisoners and injuring nearby SDF fighters.
“Our fight against Isil is full of surprises,” said Commander Afrin, who himself narrowly escaped the suicide bombers.
“We’re not yet clear what the final phase is going to look like.”
♦ The Wall Street Journal reported last night that the US military is planning to keep 1,000 troops in Syria, citing an official. It comes despite President Trump announcing a US withdrawal from Syria three months ago.