American-backed fighters in Syria have seized buildings inside ISIS’s last stronghold after a night of intense shelling and airstrikes.
Troops for the Syrian Democratic Forces captured a cluster of buildings inside Baghouz early on Monday and were facing off against an ISIS counter-attack.
‘Several positions captured and an ammunition storage has been blown up,’ SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali said on Twitter.
Syrian Democratic Forces seized a cluster of buildings from ISIS troops in Baghouz, the terror group’s last territory in Syria, early on Monday
SDF commanders said their troops had advanced but were facing off against an ISIS counter-attack on Monday and that clashes were ongoing
As well as seizing the buildings, SDF forces also destroyed an ISIS ammunition dump (pictured, an SDF solider uses a rocket launcher)
A shroud of black smoke covered the Islamic State group’s last Syria redoubt on Monday as US-backed forces battled holdout jihadists.
On a hilltop overlooking the bombed-out bastion, an AFP correspondent heard the sound of gunfire and heavy shelling ring out.
Men, believed to be jihadists, could be seen shuffling inside the redoubt, beneath a plume of smoke that obscured most of the encampment.
Crouching behind rocks, SDF fighters opened fire at IS fighters that appeared near the banks of the Euphrates River.
‘The SDF ground offensive has been very effective,’ coalition spokesman Sean Ryan told AFP on Monday.
‘The SDF continues to pursue a deliberate, methodical approach to removing the last remaining territory under Daesh,’ he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
An SDF official who asked not to be named told AFP on Monday that his force has seized a cluster of buildings from jihadists in the latest bout of fighting.
SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali on Sunday night said his force captured ‘several positions’ inside the pocket.
‘SDF is now holding positions inside the camp,’ he said on Twitter.
It remains unclear exactly how many people remain inside the last IS pocket but SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel on Sunday said that those quitting the area put the number at up to 5,000 people.
The Kurd-led force has also shied away from giving a timeline for the operation but Gabriel said that he hopes it would not take more than a week before jihadists are flushed out.
At an SDF outpost inside Baghouz on Sunday night, an AFP correspondent saw Kurdish fighters launching artillery shells towards IS positions from a nearby rooftop.
Shelling and coalition air strikes engulfed the area in a crimson blaze.
Two members of the SDF fire mortar rounds towards ISIS positions inside Baghouz, Syria, as they attempt to wrest control of the hideout from the jihadis
It is thought there are around 5,000 people left inside the territory, which is located along the Euphrates river and the last under ISIS control
The terrorist enclave resembles an encampment and is filled with stationary vehicles and tents where fighters and their families have been living
After a momentary lull, the crackle of gunfire filled the air.
‘They have started to respond,’ said one SDF fighter, referring to jihadists. ‘They will resist… these are their bullets.’
An SDF fighter told AFP on Monday that 15 people, including two women from Turkey and Somalia, fled the camp towards SDF-held territory on Sunday, shortly before fighting erupted.
More than 66,000 people, mostly civilians, have quit the last IS redoubt since January 9, according to the SDF.
They include 37,000 civilians, 5,000 jihadists and around 24,000 of their relatives.
An additional 520 IS fighters have been captured in special operations by the SDF.
The huge numbers have flummoxed Kurdish forces who are struggling to accomodate jihadists in Kurdish-run detention centres further north.
The exodus of civilians and relatives of fighters has also sparked a humanitarian crisis in Kurdish-run camps for the displaced, the biggest of which is overcrowded three times beyond capacity.
The total capture of Baghouz by the SDF would mark the end of the cross-border ‘caliphate’ it proclaimed more than four years ago.
But IS still retains a presence in eastern Syria’s vast Badia desert and has sleeper cells in the northeast.
Baghouz is the latest front in the Syrian war that has killed 370,000 people since it started in 2011.
The enclave resembles an encampment, filled with stationary vehicles and rough shelters with blankets or tarpaulins that could be seen flapping in the wind on Sunday during a lull in fighting as people walked among them.
Kurdish forces are unwilling to give an official timetable for when the pocket will fall, and have vastly underestimated the number of jihadis it contained up to now
Backed by air power and special forces from a U.S.-led coalition, the SDF has pushed Islamic State from almost the entire northeastern corner of Syria, defeating it in Raqqa in 2017 and driving it to its last enclave at Baghouz last year.
However, while its defeat at Baghouz will end its control of populated land in the third of Syria and Iraq that it captured in 2014, the group will remain a threat, regional and Western officials say.
The SDF has waged a staggered assault on the enclave, pausing for long periods over recent weeks to allow surrendering fighters, their families and other civilians to pour out.
Since Jan. 9, more than 60,000 people have left the enclave, about half of them surrendering Islamic State supporters including some 5,000 fighters, the SDF said on Sunday.
People leaving the area have spoken of harsh conditions inside, under coalition bombardment and with supplies of food so scarce some resorted to eating grass.
Last month, the SDF said it had found a mass grave in an area it captured.
Still, many of those who left Baghouz have vowed their allegiance to the jihadist group, which last week put out a propaganda film from inside the enclave calling on its supporters to keep faith.
Suicide attacks on Friday targeted families of Islamic State fighters attempting to leave the enclave and surrender, killing six people, the SDF said.
Late on Sunday, the Kurdish Ronahi TV station aired footage showing a renewed assault on the enclave, with fires seen to be raging inside and tracer fire and rockets zooming into the tiny area.
The SDF and the coalition say the Islamic State fighters inside Baghouz are among the group’s most hardened foreign fighters, though Western countries believe its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has left the area.