Kurdish-led forces ready for push on last IS pocket
- by Jerome Frank
- in World News
- — Feb 10, 2019
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have started the final attacks against the Islamic State (IS) militant group in eastern Syria, Kurdish activists reported.
The SDF had handled the last 10 days "patiently" as more than 20,000 civilians were evacuated from the besieged IS enclave, Bali said.
Speaking to Reuters, Mustafa Bali, the head of the SDF media office, described the campaign as the "last battle" and said that its goal will be to "eliminate the last remnants of the [Daesh] terrorist organisation".
"They are attempting to escape through intermixing with the innocent women and children attempting to flee the fighting", coalition deputy commander Christopher Ghika said on Thursday.
The coalition has been training and providing aerial support to the Syrian Democratic Forces, which launched an offensive on the last patch of jihadist territory in September 2018.
After weeks of advancing steadily, the SDF halted their ground assault on ISIS's tiny remaining enclave.
Relative calm is prevailing eastern Syria as the negotiation for the withdrawal of the IS from the last four sq km it controls in the eastern Euphrates River is ongoing, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
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Success against the Islamic State in Baghouz would also increase pressure on the US military to pull out of Syria, in accordance with Trump's instructions that the troops should leave once the Islamic State has been defeated.
The US military is preparing to withdraw all of its troops from Syria by the end of April even as the Donald Trump administration is yet to come up with a plan to protect its Kurdish partners from attack when its forces pull out, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi is believed to have fled an attempted coup by fighters within his own group last month, senior regional intelligence officials have told the Guardian.
The assault on Baghouz is being conducted by the SDF's Kurdish and Arab fighters, backed by US airstrikes and USA advisers.
The Britain-based war monitor has said that figure includes some 3,200 suspected jihadists.
The U.S. military presence in Syria has offered the Kurds a measure of protection against any Turkish offensive.
