\nDEIR AL-ZOR PROVINCE, Syria: US-backed Syrian forces said they were close to capturing Daesh\u2019s last territorial possession in eastern Syria on Tuesday after seizing the militants\u2019 camp at Baghouz, though clashes continued with some remaining militants.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThis is not a victory announcement, but a significant progress in the fight against Daesh,\u201d said Mustafa Bali, a media official with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia on Twitter, using an Arabic acronym for Daesh.<\/p>\n
\nAsked by Reuters how long it would take to defeat the remaining militants, Bali said he expected the operation to end \u201cvery soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe battles are not yet over. There are still some pockets next to the river. Some of the terrorists have taken their children as human shields. There are intermittent clashes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\nThe camp was the biggest remaining area held by Daesh in Baghouz, itself the last populated area the militant group held from the third of Syria and Iraq it suddenly seized in 2014.<\/p>\n
\nIt has been steadily forced back there after years of retreats in the face of military campaigns by the US-backed SDF, the Russia-backed Syrian army and the Iraqi army with allied Iran-backed militias.<\/p>\n
\nOver recent weeks, as the group hemorrhaged supporters fleeing the besieged enclave, diehard militants mounted a desperate last stand in the battered Baghouz camp, shooting from trenches and sending car bombs against their enemies.<\/p>\n
\nConditions inside were dire, said people who left, with inhabitants facing constant danger from bombardment and with little food, forced to eat grass. Hundreds of wounded militants were captured when the SDF overran the camp, Bali said.<\/p>\n
\nHowever, while the capture of the previously unknown village of Baghouz near Syria\u2019s border with Iraq, will mark a milestone in the battle against Daesh, regional and Western officials say the group will remain a threat<\/p>\n
\nSome of its fighters hold out in the remote central Syrian desert and others have gone underground in Iraq to stage a series of shootings and kidnappings.<\/p>\n
\nThe SDF earlier on Monday said it had captured 157 mostly foreign fighters as they tracked efforts by militants to break out of the enclave and escape their besiegers.<\/p>\n
\nBoth the SDF and the US-led coalition that backs it have said the remaining Daesh militants at Baghouz are among its most hardened foreign operatives.<\/p>\n
\nOver the past two months, more than 60,000 people have poured out of the group\u2019s dwindling enclave, nearly half of whom were surrendering supporters of Daesh, including some 5,000 fighters.<\/p>\n
\nEven on the brink of defeat, the group\u2019s propaganda division continued to function. On Monday night Daesh released an audio recording of its spokesman, Abi Al-Hassan Al-MuHajjer, saying the group would stay strong.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDo you think the displacement of the weak and poor out of Baghouz will weaken the Daesh? No,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\nIt also put out a video recording from inside the Baghouz camp, showing fighters shooting out at the encircling forces and a mess of stationary vehicles and makeshift shelters around them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Daesh loses big part of Syrian enclave, SDF sees militants\u2019 defeat \u2018very soon\u2019 DEIR AL-ZOR PROVINCE, Syria: US-backed Syrian forces said they were close to capturing Daesh\u2019s last territorial possession in eastern Syria on Tuesday after seizing the militants\u2019 camp at Baghouz, though clashes continued with some remaining militants. \u201cThis is not a victory announcement,…<\/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-36257","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\/36257","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=36257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}