Forces comb last IS hideouts in Baghouz
Published on: Saturday, March 23, 2019
By: AFP
BAGHUZ: Kurdish-led forces combed the banks of the Euphrates in eastern Syria to smoke out the last jihadists preventing the much-delayed announcement of the demise of the Islamic State’s “caliphate”.The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched an assault against the last IS bastion in the village of Baghouz on February 9.
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On Tuesday, they cornered diehard fighters into a few acres of farmland by the Euphrates River, after forcing them out of the main encampment where they had been confined.
The six-month-old operation to wipe out the last vestige of IS’s once-sprawling proto-state is close to reaching its inevitable outcome, but SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali on Thursday said a victory announcement would be premature.
“Our force is still carrying out combing operations and searches” for hidden jihadists, he said.
“As soon as we are done, we will announce the liberation” of Baghouz, the spokesman added.
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His comments came one day after US President Donald Trump said the jihadists’ self-proclaimed “caliphate” would be “gone as of tonight”.
It also came in response to reports earlier on Thursday that the IS enclave had completely fallen.
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“The SDF media team has not announced this” victory, Bali said.
The frontline was quiet on Thursday, for the second-day in a row, as the SDF paused its push to allow for more surrenders.
The eerie silence that reigned over the battlefield was interrupted only by the whooshing of warplanes overhead.
SDF fighters walked unarmed in a wasteland of mangled vehicles on the camp’s outskirts.
The flags of the Kurdish-led force dotted the area.
SDF official Jiaker Amed said Thursday that several IS fighters were still in hiding.
“We have discovered several (jihadist) hideouts,” he told AFP.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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