US-backed, Kurdish-led forces are on the verge of eliminating the Islamic State group’s last remaining enclave in Syria near the border with Iraq after a four-month devastating bombing campaign that has left hundreds of civilian casualties, residents and rebels said on Wednesday.
The capture of the village of Baghous comes after a string of other villages fell in recent days to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led militia alliance with aerial bombing strikes by a US-led coalition.
The SDF, which in September last year launched a major offensive to remove the militants from their last pocket, were at first bogged down by fierce resistance, but advanced last month when they took the town of Hajin, the main urban stronghold in the enclave.
Photo: AFP
The SDF now has only a 7km stretch that separates them from full control of the entire east of the Euphrates River region, former residents and insurgents said.
The Islamic State group lost nearly all the territory it once held in Syria last year in separate offensives by the SDF and the Russian-backed Syrian army.
The conquest of the last pocket near the Iraqi border marks a major blow, leaving the militants scattered in sparsely populated desert areas in eastern Syria.
To compensate for the loss of territory, the militants are expanding hit-and-run assassinations of SDF fighters and commanders, and attacks on checkpoints, security analysts said.
“The militants are changing tactics and adopting guerrilla methods, and will be now using hundreds of their sleeper cells to wage deadly attacks,” tribal leader Sheikh Faisal Marashdah said.
Former residents in touch with relatives said that at least 1,000 civilians have left the enclave in the past 48 hours and handed themselves over to the Kurdish-led forces.
Among them were about 150 foreign fighters enlisted with the militants and their families.
Kurdish sources said they were taken to an undisclosed high-security camp further north for screening.
Residents and local activists have accused the US-led coalition of indiscriminate bombing that they blame for killing dozens of civilians since the start of the campaign.
The Pentagon says it is careful to avoid civilian casualties in its bombing raids and investigates any allegations.
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