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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

IS loses big part of enclave, SDF sees defeat ‘very soon’

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DEIR AL-ZOR PROVINCE, Syria: US-backed Syrian forces said they were close to defeating IS in its final scrap of territory at Baghouz in eastern Syria after seizing an encampment from the extremists on Tuesday, though the battle was not over yet. Hardened militant fighters holed up in the encampment had been mounting a last-stand defence of the Baghouz enclave, all that is left of IS’s self-proclaimed “caliphate” that once spanned a third of both Syria and Iraq.


“This is not a victory announcement, but a significant progress in the fight against Daesh,” said Mustafa Bali, a media official with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Twitter, using an Arabic acronym for IS.


The SDF captured hundreds of wounded militants when it overran the camp on Tuesday, Bali said. It also captured 157 mostly foreign fighters. Asked by Reuters how long it would take to defeat the remaining extremists, Bali said he expected the operation to end “very soon”. Some remaining militants had fallen back to the bank of the nearby Euphrates River, he said.


“The battles are not yet over,” he said. “Some of the terrorists have taken their children as human shields. There are intermittent clashes.”


IS’s fighters and followers have been steadily forced back to Baghouz after years of retreats in the face of military campaigns by an array of foreign and local forces. The group’s defeat at Baghouz will mark a milestone in the struggle against the extremists, although adherents are still widely seen as a big security threat with a presence in remote territory and capable of mounting guerrilla attacks. — Reuters


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