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AFP
Baghouz, Syria
US-backed forces said Wednesday the Islamic State group was living its “final moments” after thunderous shelling on its last scrap of land in eastern Syria prompted 3,000 militants to surrender.
But the die-hard IS fighters who stayed to defend the remnants of their “caliphate” struck back with a wave of suicide bombings, said the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
IS once ruled over millions in a swathe of Syria and Iraq, but it has since lost all that territory except for a riverside slither in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.
Thousands of men and women have poured out of the pocket in recent weeks, hampering an advance by the US-backed SDF, which has paused its offensive multiple times to allow evacuations.
Supported by air strikes by the US-led coalition against the militants, the SDF resumed artillery shelling on Sunday after warning holdout IS fighters their time was up.
For three nights in a row, the Kurdish-led SDF has unleashed a deluge of fire on militant outposts, engulfing their makeshift encampment in a ravaging blaze.
“IS’s final moments have started,” SDF official Jiaker Amed said.
Clashes continued Wednesday as the SDF worked to thwart IS counterattacks. Militants “launched two counterattacks today–one in the morning and another in the afternoon,” an SDF official said. “The second one was much stronger” and was launched under the cover of smoke caused by bombing, he said.
The official said militants were using suicide bombers but his force intercepted them before they reached their target. The militants “made no progress and they were stopped,” he said.
Inside Baghouz, the crackle and thud of gunfire and shelling rang out from the encampment as plumes of thick black smoke rose over the bombed-out IS bastion.
Amid the rubble, three SDF fighters lobbed a salvo of mortar shells towards the IS pocket, hours after the militant counterattack at daybreak under the cover of a dust storm.
On a rooftop near the front line, a correspondent saw a warplane fire two missiles at IS positions.
Delil, an SDF fighter, said: “Today, the sandstorm is to their benefit but all coming days are ours.” Outside the village, dozens of evacuees sat in clusters on a field dotted with yellow flowers, a day after thousands of the last survivors of the “caliphate” handed themselves over to US-backed forces.
After a night of heavy bombardment on Tuesday, SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said about 3,000 militnats had handed themselves over to the SDF in the past 24 hours.
“The battle is ongoing and the final hour is now closer than ever,” he said on Twitter.
But an SDF official said on Wednesday that “it appears as though many fighters remain inside” the last pocket.
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14/03/2019
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