BAGHOUZ:US-backed forces battled Islamic State group fighters yesterday as the holdoutjihadists clung onto the last dregs of their crumbling "caliphate" ineastern Syria. For weeks, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have battledto crush IS fighters holed up in a small riverside hamlet in the village ofBaghouz.
The makeshiftencampment of tents and tunnels is all that remains of a once-sprawling"caliphate" declared in 2014 over large swaths of Syria andneighboring Iraq. The SDF and coalition warplanes have rained fire on theenclave since last Sunday, blitzing more than 4,000 IS fighters and familymembers into surrender. US-backed forces have reduced daytime airstrikes andshelling to allow for more exits from the last jihadist bastion.
But AFPjournalists at an SDF post inside Baghouz heard sporadic rounds of mortar fireSaturday and an SDF spokesman said clashes were ongoing. "Clashes brokeout again last night and have continued since," SDF spokesman Adnan Afrinsaid. "There have so far been no surrenders (today) and there's no signthey are giving up," the spokesman said. An SDF statement said the latestfighting broke out after the Kurd-led force attacked IS positions inside Baghouz.Around 32 jihadists, including at least four senior IS figures, were killed inbattle, it said.
Suicide attacks
On Friday, ISlaunched three suicide attacks outside Baghouz, killing six people among thosefleeing the village near the Iraqi border. They were the latest casualties inSyria's devastating civil war as it entered its ninth year with 370,000 dead.The US-led coalition said the bombers were dressed in women's clothing and hadmixed with others surrendering.
"Daesh hasproven to demonstrate a reckless disregard for human life and continues to be aglobal threat,"it said late Friday, using an Arabic acronym for IS."We stand by our SDF partners as they fight to liberate that lastDaesh-held territory," it said on Twitter. Die-hard IS fighters have unleasheda wave of suicide bombings over the past week to impede the SDF advance. Itremains unclear how many fighters and civilians remain inside Baghouz.
More than 61,000people have streamed out of IS-held territory since December, the Britain-basedSyrian Observatory for Human Rights says, a tenth of them suspected jihadists.The exodus has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Kurdish-run camps for thedisplaced further north where civilians have been transported. These includethe wives and children of alleged foreign jihadists, hundreds of whom are beingheld by the Kurdish forces.
Distress,fatigue, malnutrition
Around 3,000people arrived at Al-Hol camp from Baghouz over the past two days, pushing thecamp's population to over 69,000, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) saidyesterday. According to the United Nations children's fund, UNICEF, the campwas designed with a 20,000-person capacity. The UN said most of the newarrivals "show clear signs of distress, fatigue, malnutrition and requiresome form of medical care or attention".
According to theIRC and UN, around 122 people have died en route to the camp or shortly afterarriving since December, mostly small children, two of them on Thursday."There is an urgent requirement for funding to continue health andnutrition interventions in the camp," the UN said. At the height of itsbrutal rule, IS controlled a stretch of land in Syria and Iraq the size of theUnited Kingdom.
The total captureof the Baghouz camp by the SDF would mark the end of the cross-border"caliphate" it proclaimed more than four years ago. But beyondBaghouz, IS retains a presence in eastern Syria's vast Badia desert and sleepercells in the northeast. The jihadists have continued to claim deadly attacks inSDF-held territory in recent months. - AFP