IS ‘losing ground’ in final bastion as key positions fall to US-backed fighters

Vehicle dump: smoke rises from the Baghouz district, where IS fighters are holed up
AFP/Getty Images
David Gardner18 March 2019

US-backed forces have seized key positions inside Islamic State’s final bastion where hundreds of fighters have been holed up on the banks of the Euphrates.

The potential breakthrough was revealed today by a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia, which has been fighting a weeks-long battle to take the tiny patch of land outside the village of Baghouz. After air strikes and artillery pounded the enclave, Mustafa Bali tweeted: “Several positions captured and an ammunition storage has been blown up. SDF is now holding positions inside the camp in #Baghouz.”

Islamic State’s territorial defeat has been anticipated for days as the Kurdish troops had the fighters pinned in an area of just one square mile.

But their efforts were slowed by mines, tunnels and the possibility of harming women and children still around Baghouz. The scruffy escarpment — made up of hundreds of trucks, cars and minibuses clustered around several concrete buildings — was all that remained of the IS stronghold that once reached across about one-third of Iraq and Syria.

Since early January more than 60,000 people have left the enclave, about half of them surrendering IS supporters including some 5,000 fighters, the SDF said yesterday. Emerging refugees said conditions were so harsh and food so scarce that some resorted to eating grass. However, while its defeat at Baghouz will end IS control of populated land it first captured in 2014, regional and Western security officials say the group will remain a threat.

Border threats: Turkish armoured vehicles patrol in Hama province
AFP/Getty Images

IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still at large and is believed to have fled Baghouz. The “final assault” came amid reports the Pentagon was drawing up plans to keep up to 1,000 troops in Syria, despite President Donald Trump’s claim three months ago that he was ordering a full withdrawal from the war-torn country.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the move has become necessary because the White House has so far failed to reach any agreement with European allies and Turkey to create a safe zone for the US-protected Kurdish fighters. With Turkey refusing to back down on threats to cross the border and attack the Kurds if a US pull-out leaves them vulnerable, the Trump administration has been forced to agree to keeping a presence in Syria.

About half the US force of about 2,000 troops could remain on the front line working with the Kurds until final resistance from some of IS’s most battle-hardened foreign fighters is over.

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