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CONFLICT-SYRIA-KURDS–IS,WRAP
East Syria death toll soars after massive IS attack
BEIRUT, Nov 26, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – US-backed fighters in Syria suffered
record fatalities in an assault by the Islamic State group, a war monitor
said Monday, as holdout jihadists kept up a fierce defence of their last
Syrian redoubt.
It said a total of more than 200 people have been killed since around 500
IS fighters burst out of the fog shrouding the area in eastern Syria near the
border with Iraq to launch their deadly assault on Friday.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 92 of the dead were
fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led ground
units that have spearheaded the US-backed fight against IS in Syria.
At least 61 jihadists and 51 civilians, mostly their relatives, also died
in the violence which saw US-led coalition air strikes help the SDF recover
positions it had briefly lost.
The jihadists used suicide bombers, suicide commandos and sleeper cells in
the countryside around their bastion of Hajin to inflict maximum damage, it
said.
“It’s the largest number of SDF fighters killed (by IS) in a single battle
since it was founded” in 2015, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
The SDF, an alliance of fighters from the main Syrian Kurdish militia known
as the People’s Protection Units and anti-jihadist Arab fighters, rarely
releases full casualty figures.
– Mounting toll –
Abdel Rahman said the latest deaths brought to 452 the number of SDF
fighters killed since the start of their offensive on the Hajin pocket on
September 10.
The jihadists have been putting up fierce resistance from their remote
Euphrates strongholds, the last rump but also the hard core of a once
sprawling “caliphate” that straddled Iraq and Syria.
Most of their recent forays and their deadliest attacks have come as a
result of weather conditions hampering the coalition’s ability to launch air
strikes.
Abdel Rahman said local tribal fighters opposed to IS also helped the SDF
take back the positions they had lost on Friday.
The Observatory, which relies on a vast network of local sources, said the
death toll continued to soar on Sunday as many bodies were discovered.
The IS propaganda agency Amaq had released a statement Saturday claiming to
have killed 60 enemy fighters and captured 30.
According to the Observatory, a total of 284 civilians have been killed
since the start of the attacks on the IS pocket two and half months ago.
Most of them have died in air strikes, the Britain-based group says. The
coalition usually only admits to a fraction of the civilian deaths it is
believed to have caused.
The SDF is fighting to retake areas which have no Kurdish presence even as
Turkish forces attack its own heartland further north.
– IS heartland –
Resentment over the failure of their US ally to stop Turkish military
action has slowed their advance against IS, whose eradication is proving long
and costly.
“The area is mixed between desert and smaller cities like Hajin which makes
it tremendously difficult to isolate and contain IS fighters,” Syria analyst
Tore Hamming said.
He said IS units there could not be surrounded as easily as they were
during operations last year against more confined areas like the city of
Raqa.
The jihadists have more knowledge and local support than the Syrian
government or the Kurds, Hamming said.
He said most IS fighters there were seasoned fighters made even more
dangerous by the knowledge they were making a last stand.
“They know that they will either be killed by an airstrike or captured and
put into prison if not sentenced to death,” said Hamming from the European
University Institute.
The Observatory could not confirm reports in Kurdish media that the second-
in-command of IS was captured during the weekend fighting.
An SDF spokesman contacted by AFP declined to comment on the reported
capture of a man named as Osama Abu Zeid and described as IS supremo Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi’s deputy.
BSS/AFP/RY/1920 hrs