{"id":30970,"date":"2019-01-28T23:23:16","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T23:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30970"},"modified":"2019-01-28T23:23:16","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T23:23:16","slug":"scores-of-civilians-fighters-depart-daesh-stronghold-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30970","title":{"rendered":"Scores of civilians, fighters depart Daesh stronghold in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1443456\/middle-east\" readability=\"96\">\n<p>\nSOUSA:\u00a0Syrian opposition activists said on Monday scores of civilians and fighters have evacuated the Daesh\u2019s last major stronghold in Syria.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some 2,000 people, including 300 Daesh gunmen, have left the area in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor since Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe DeirEzzor 24, an activist collective, reported on Monday that dozens of civilians had left the area, which US-backed Syrian fighters have been trying to take since September.<\/p>\n<p>\nIt said that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led group, captured a local Daesh commander and his bodyguard.<\/p>\n<p>\nMeanwhile, a senior Kurdish commander said the Daesh\u2019s once-sprawling \u201ccaliphate\u201d has been reduced to a four-square-kilometer pocket of territory.<\/p>\n<p>\nWith support from a US-led military coalition, the SDF are in the final stages of an assault launched more than four months ago against the militants\u2019 last bastion.<\/p>\n<p>\nA dwindling number of Daesh fighters, led mostly by Iraqi commanders, are now defending only a handful of hamlets in the Euphrates Valley, SDF commander Heval Roni said.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cGeographically speaking, there are only 4 square kilometers left under Daesh control, stretching from Baghouz to the Iraqi border,\u201d he told AFP in the Baghouz area.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cThere are some high-ranking Daesh leaders among them &#8230; but we don\u2019t know who exactly,\u201d said Roni, who heads SDF operations in the area.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe SDF is a Kurdish-led force that also includes Arab fighters from the region and which has spearheaded the fight against Daesh in Syria since it was formed in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe commander said he had no information about Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, who is believed to still be alive and is the world\u2019s most wanted man.<\/p>\n<p>\nIn an interview with AFP last week, the top commander of the SDF said that the battle was winding up but that his forces would need about a month to assert full control over the area and declare victory.<\/p>\n<p>\nAccording to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 1,200 militants and around half as many SDF fighters have been killed since the start of the offensive on Sept. 10.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe Britain-based monitoring group says more than 400 civilians have also perished, many of them killed by coalition airstrikes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SOUSA:\u00a0Syrian opposition activists said on Monday scores of civilians and fighters have evacuated the Daesh\u2019s last major stronghold in Syria. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some 2,000 people, including 300 Daesh gunmen, have left the area in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor since Sunday. The DeirEzzor 24, an activist collective, reported&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}