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More evacuations from ISIS-held Baghouz after night of intense clashes
[Rudaw] After a night of intense festivities between Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... snuffies in Baghouz, hundreds of ISIS fighters and their families exited their camp and surrendered on Thursday. ISIS is cornered in a tent camp on the banks of the Euphrates River near Baghouz, in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province. The SDF have broken into the camp on the western side, but progress is limited because of the presence of civilians. "We are slowly going forward. If it hadn’t been for their families, our campaign would have been done long ago. There isn’t much left of the campaign," an SDF fighter told Rudaw. The snuffies in Baghouz have two choices, Mustafa Bali, SDF spokesperson, told media: they either surrender unconditionally or get killed. The SDF mostly progress at night because that is when civilians are hiding but jihadists are on the move, the SDF fighter explained to Rudaw. "We are slowly going forward in the night so that our comrades don’t get martyred or injured and so that nothing happens to the women and kiddies," he said. Veiled women and their young, wailing children struggled over the rough terrain, laden down with their possessions as they straggled into SDF-controlled territory. Haggard men, some injured, shuffled along and the occasional crack of gunfire or the bang of an kaboom could be heard. "Our forces are advancing continuously on a number of fronts... the pace is very slow because of the civilians still trapped inside areas under the control of the ISIS mercenaries," a female SDF fighter told Rudaw, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS. The SDF is keeping open a corridor for families to evacuate and snuffies to surrender. On Thursday, 1,300 people ‐ families and fighters ‐ turned themselves in, Bali tweeted. More than 60,000 people have evacuated the Baghouz area since December, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Not all are giving up on their so-called caliphate that once covered swathes of Syria and Iraq. In the past 24 hours, ISIS attempted more than 20 suicide kabooms, according to the SDF. "Despite the ferocity of the battles and festivities on all fronts and axes, none of our fighters got hurt or damaged," the force stated, adding they have killed or injured 112 ISIS bully boys. The Observatory has documented 11 SDF fighters killed.
"Our fighters advanced deep into areas controlled by the terrorist organisation and established a number of new points, following clashes in which terrorists sustained a number of deaths and injuries," a statement from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) press office said. It said 15 members of Islamic State had been killed after they tried to attack SDF troops.
IS fighters are now cornered on a palm-lined bend of the Euphrates near Syria's border with Iraq, but they are still on the offensive. "They attacked on two axes, from the Euphrates river, and from the hill," an SDF commander who gave his name as Sheikh Al-Jabal says from the roof of a nearby villa used as a military position. He points to the banks of the river behind the IS encampment, about a kilometre (half a mile) away, but the view is obscured by the thick black smoke billowing out of the ruins of Baghouz. A wasteland strewn with the charred carcasses of vans, cars and water tankers lies beyond the SDF's positions, marking the edge of the handful of acres ruled by IS. Posted by: trailing wife 2019-03-15 |
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