{"id":35341,"date":"2019-03-14T10:22:51","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T10:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=35341"},"modified":"2019-03-14T10:22:51","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T10:22:51","slug":"us-backed-sdf-says-fight-against-isil-enters-final-moments-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=35341","title":{"rendered":"US-backed SDF says fight against ISIL enters ‘final moments’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) say the battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Baghouz is\u00a0as good as over, with the armed group\u00a0<\/span>facing imminent defeat.<\/p>\n

Thick black smoke rose from the ISIL<\/a>-held\u00a0encampment on Wednesday, as air strikes and mortar fire pounded Baghouz for a third night in a row.<\/p>\n

The Kurdish-led SDF has unleashed a deluge of fire on Baghouz,\u00a0a little cluster of hamlets and farmland on the banks of the Euphrates river,\u00a0<\/span>with around 3,000 ISIL fighters and their families surrendering since Monday.<\/p>\n

Kino Gabriel, a spokesman for the SDF,\u00a0said that after the series of surrenders, the offensive against ISIL was “as good as over”.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The operation is over, or as good as over, but requires a little more time to be completed practically”.<\/p>\n

As the crackle and thud of gunfire and shelling rang out\u00a0from the encampment early on Wednesday, the SDF said that three Yazidi women and four children held captive by ISIL had been rescued.<\/p>\n

“The objective of our advance is to terrorise ISIL fighters so they surrender, and for the civilians to come out,” said Ali Cheir, an SDF commander.<\/p>\n

Baghouz is all that remains of ISIL’s so-called caliphate after it lost its major cities of Mosul and Raqqa in 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Since December, around 60,000 people have left Baghouz, with most of those headed to the al-Hol camp.<\/p>\n

The outpouring has sparked a humanitarian crisis in the Kurdish-run camps, which are struggling to accommodate the mass influx of women and children.<\/p>\n

Retaking Baghouz would mark a milestone in the campaign against the armed group, which once controlled almost one-third of Iraq and Syria under its self-declared “caliphate”.<\/p>\n

Separate offensives were launched by different forces in both countries eventually forcing ISIL back to Baghouz.<\/p>\n

The SDF announced a military operation to liberate Baghouz in September, but the Kurds said they held off a full-blown assault after it became apparent that a huge number of civilians were still inside.<\/p>\n

‘Burning in hell’<\/h2>\n

Outside of Baghouz, dozens of evacuees sat in clusters on a field, a day after thousands handed themselves over to US-backed forces.<\/p>\n

While dozens have been killed in clashes in recent days, hundreds of ISIL fighters are still believed to be holding out in the tent city, ready to fight to the death.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The armed group put out a new propaganda video earlier this week, insisting on its claim to leadership of all Muslims and calling on its supporters to keep the faith.<\/p>\n

“Tomorrow, God willing, we will be in paradise and they will be burning in hell,” Abu Abdul Azeem,\u00a0<\/span>an ISIL member was seen as saying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Syrian civil war<\/span> <\/a> \u00a0started as a largely peaceful uprising against\u00a0the Syrian government\u00a0in March 2011 but was brutally repressed and\u00a0<\/span>quickly\u00a0morphed into a complex, multi-faceted war.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

The former United Nations special envoy to\u00a0Syria<\/a>,\u00a0Staffan de Mistura,\u00a0estimated<\/span>\u00a0at least 400,000 people had died<\/a>\u00a0over the first five years of conflict.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of thousands of others have been displaced by the violence. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) say the battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Baghouz is\u00a0as good as over, with the armed group\u00a0facing imminent defeat. Thick black smoke rose from the ISIL-held\u00a0encampment on Wednesday, as air strikes and mortar fire pounded Baghouz for a third…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35341","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=35341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}