Kurdish-led forces on Saturday battled militants defending their last village as operations were relaunched to flush out the Islamic State (IS) group from eastern Syria after several days of humanitarian evacuations.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) pushed into Baghouz, a tiny hamlet near the Iraqi border where IS fighters have been making a last stand.
An official for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which forms the backbone of the SDF, on Saturday said they had breached the militants’ perimeter.
“The assault is under way — the forces have started to enter the last [IS] pocket,” said Aram Kojeir, a YPG official on the ground.
“The advance on the ground is taking place on three axes,” he said, adding that the SDF had also taken control of a hill overlooking the last redoubt.
Reporters near the front line could see thick black smoke rising above the heart of the village, which SDF units approached through outlying farms.
“The intense fighting continues,” spokesman Adnan Afrin told reporters, adding that eight SDF fighters had been seriously wounded in the first few hours of the battle.
“It’s closer combat now, the distance between us and the jihadists is gone,” he said, adding that a 1km buffer had been maintained over the past few days.
A journalist near Baghouz reported military planes in the sky. The SDF launched the assault late on Friday after a week-long exodus that saw thousands of people flee the enclave.
While militants, who have been besieged for weeks in an ever-shrinking pocket, are vastly outgunned, their use of tunnels, booby-traps and suicide bombers is hampering the SDF advance.
“We can’t put a timeframe on this battle — two weeks, three weeks or a week — it will depend on the surprises we get along the way,” Afrin said. “Those who have not surrendered by now will meet their fate there.”
Most of the more than 50,000 people who left the very last rump of the IS “caliphate” over the past few weeks were women and children.
Only a few dozen people were evacuated by the SDF on Friday in the smallest convoy in days, prompting the Kurdish-led force to close the humanitarian window and resume their offensive.
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