The US-backed group besieging the last ISIS held redoubt in Syria has captured the group’s encampment in Baghouz, a spokesman has said, while an unknown number of cornered militants refuse to surrender.
The Syrian Democratic Forces have been attacking the ISIS camp in the village of Baghouz since January. SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali said on Tuesday that the SDF “is in control of Daesh encampment area in Baghouz”.
“This is not a victory announcement, but a significant progress in the fight against Daesh,” he wrote.
The military operation is ongoing, as “a group of ISIS terrorists who are confined in a tiny area still fight back,” he added.
Another SDF commander Zana Amedi said the encampment is “completely under SDF control.”
#SDF is in control of Daesh encampment area in #Baghouz. This is not a victory announcement, but a significant progress in the fight against Daesh. Clashes are continuing as a group of ISIS terrorists who are confined into a tiny area still fight back.
— Mustafa Bali (@mustefabali) March 19, 2019
Earlier, the SDF reported capturing 157 militants trying to escape Baghouz. A statement said its special forces had anticipated a breakout attempt by desperate militants. “In a well-ordered operation, our units monitored a group of terrorists, trailing and capturing 157 with their full military equipment,” the SDF said.
“The arrested terrorists are foreign nationals with long fighting experience,” it continued.
Mr Bali declined to specify the nationalities of the captured fighters. He did not say when the operation took place.
Meanwhile hundreds of sick and injured ISIS militants who were captured when the SDF took over the encampment were transported to military hospitals on Tuesday, he said. They had been treated humanely, he added.
In the past two months, some 5,000 fighters have surrendered, among over 60,000 people who have left Baghouz, a tiny farming village in the Euphrates River valley in eastern Syria.
After more than two months of fitful assaults and pauses for civilians to escape and militants to surrender, the SDF estimates there may yet be 5,000 more people in Baghouz.
The militant encampment is flat riparian farmland, now crammed with abandoned vehicles and crowded with makeshift tent shelters.
It is the only territory left in Iraq and Syria controlled by ISIS, which in 2014 declared a caliphate and once ruled over a third of both countries. Footage filmed in Baghouz on Monday showed smoke billowing from the area while gunfire could be heard.
While the group’s eventual defeat in Baghouz is inevitable, ISIS’s leadership and its supporters have already vowed to regroup.
On Monday night, ISIS released an audio recording from its spokesman, known only by his nom de guerre Abu Hassan Al Muhajir, saying the group would remain strong.
“Do you think the displacement of the weak and poor out of Baghouz will weaken the Islamic State?” he asked. “No.”
