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IS suffers heavy Syria losses despite Kurd pause: monitor
BEIRUT, Nov 7, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – At least 45 Islamic State group fighters
have been killed around their last enclave in Syria despite a pause in a two-
month Kurdish-led assault, a monitor said on Wednesday.
A Kurdish-led alliance backed by Washington announced the pause in its
offensive in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor last week in protest at
Turkish shelling of Kurdish areas along the northern border.
But waves of US-led air strikes since Monday have killed 28 jihadists,
including during an abortive IS assault on Tuesday on an oilfield north of
the enclave, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Syrian Democratic Forces killed another 17 IS fighters while defending
their base in the village of Al-Bahra just outside IS-held territory on
Monday, the Britain-based monitoring group said.
Alliance spokesman Kino Gabriel had stressed that the pause in offensive
operations did not mean SDF fighters would not defend themselves.
The SDF launched its offensive against the IS enclave around the Euphrates
valley town of Hajin on September 10.
But after making slow progress, they suffered a major setback last month
when IS took advantage of sand storms to launch a series of counter-attacks.
By the end of the month, they were back at square one with all of the
territory they had won recaptured by the jihadists.
The Hajin enclave is the last significant remnant of the “caliphate” IS
proclaimed in 2014 across a vast swathe of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
The rest has all been lost to offensives by multiple alliances on both
sides of the border.
Outside the Hajin enclave, the group’s operations are confined to sleeper
cells and to hideouts in unpopulated desert and mountain areas.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1850 hrs