‘Final battle’ to crush Islamic State in Syria begins
- Spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG militia, the SDF has been the main US partner in Syria and has driven Islamic State out of a swathe of the north and east over the last four years
- US President Donald Trump said last week he had been told that the full territorial conquest of the Islamic State could be completed in the coming week
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said it had begun the “final battle” to oust Islamic State from the last scrap of territory it holds in eastern Syria.
IS overran large parts of the country and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, declaring a “caliphate” there, but various military offensives have reduced it to a fragment.
Backed by air strikes of the US-led coalition against IS, the Kurdish-Arab alliance has in recent months cornered the jihadists in a final pocket of territory in Syria’s eastern province of Deir Ezzor.
After a pause of more than a week to allow civilians to flee, the SDF said Saturday it had resumed the fight to seize the last 4 sq km patch from the jihadists.
“The SDF have launched the final battle to crush IS... in the village of Baghouz,” the SDF said in a statement.
“After ten days of evacuating more than 20,000 civilians... the battle was launched tonight” to wipe out the last remnants of the organisation, it said.
