[Aljazeera] Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) snipers and landmines have slowed a US-backed ground force as it pushes to retake the armed group's last enclave in eastern Syria.Black-smoke clouds rose over ISIL's final territory in Deir Az Zor province on Monday as coalition fighter jets fired missiles in support of the Kurdish-led militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The SDF launched an offensive on Saturday attempting to expel about 600 ISIL fighters from a 4sq km area in Baghouz village, near the Iraqi border on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River.
The US-led coalition maintained a steady beat of bombings on the enclave after an early morning ISIL counterattack caused several SDF casualties.
"[ISIL] launched a counterattack on our forces and we are now responding with rockets, air attacks and direct clashes," said SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali.
About 1,500 civilians had fled the enclave on Monday. "It seems there are still many civilians inside Baghouz," Bali said. "We are compelled to go cautiously and accurately in this battle."
Bali said there were "dozens of SDF hostages" captured by ISIL.
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[IsraelTimes] US-led coalition air strikes on the last jihadist pocket in Syria on Monday killed 16 civilians, including at least seven Nineteen fighters from the 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....
group were also killed in festivities with the coalition-backed Kurdish-led force spearheading the offensive against the jihadists, the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.
| Al Masdar adds: |
Fleeing Daesh terrorists resort to dressing as women to evade capture in eastern Syria[AlMasdar] ISIS fighters are resorting to increasingly desperate measures to disguise themselves in an attempt to escape Kurdish fighters in southeast Syria, an unnamed YPG commander has told the Daily Star.
"You think of it, they do it," the commander said.
"It’s crazy right now, they’re really desperate. They are trying to blend in because there are so many [civilians]," he added.
Earlier, the Syrian Democratic Forces, the umbrella organization which includes the YPG, reported that over 20,000 civilians had fled the area in recent days amid the battle between gunnies and the militia.
The YPG commander confirmed that fighters "have been trying to escape in women’s clothes," explaining that "some of them dress as women because we don’t ask the women to raise their hijab."
Other jihadists resorted to posing as members of civilian families, the commander said. "They go into random families and scare them."
"The families are afraid to say, ’oh no, I don’t know him’. They also say, ’they forced me, let me pass by and I will tell you where they are’. At this point, it doesn’t really matter what they say because we know where they are. There’s only one place they can be," the commander added, referring to the terrorists’ complete encirclement by the militia.
This isn’t the first reported case of ISIS fighters trying to flee the Syrian and Iraqi war zones in disguise. In 2015, shortly after the beginning of the Russian air campaign against the terrorists, hundreds of fighters in northern Syria reportedly shaved their beards and fled to
...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund....
The Russian Air Force then began monitoring terrorist efforts from the de facto ISIS capital of Raqqa to flee as civilians. Later, the Iraqi Army temporarily banned the burqa and niqab in liberated djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
for security reasons amid fears that gunnies were disguising themselves as women to escape.