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In Syria’s Baghouz, dying palms and a wilting IS ‘caliphate’
BAGHOUZ, Syria, Feb 17, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The wilted palms and
pomegranate trees at the entrance to Baghouz were struggling to survive, much
like diehard Islamic State group fighters in the Syrian village.
Pinned down in a patch less than half a square kilometre, the jihadists
faced intermittent air strikes by the US-led coalition backing the Syrian
Democratic Forces.
On a press tour Saturday organised by the US-backed forces, the street
ahead was punched through by massive craters and sprinkled with charred
lorries.
“The SDF were here,” read a spray-painted Arabic message on a one-storey
house.
Atop a building captured by the SDF, a fighter peered out at columns of
smoke from fresh bombardment.
“They fire at us at night, then clashes start before they run away again,”
said Hamza Shaddadi, his rifle slung over his shoulder and a walkie-talkie in
his hand.
“But we don’t get any closer because of the civilians,” he told AFP.
SDF officials say they have IS surrounded in a tiny part of Baghouz but
are holding off on an assault because civilians — including families of IS
fighters — are still thought to be inside.
But the town would be cleared “in just a few days”, said Shaddadi, who
seemed visibly impatient.
– ‘More ferocious’ –
Even in areas already captured from the jihadists, SDF units combed
through rubble and ruined houses used as IS bases in search of secret
tunnels, sleeper cells, or unexploded ordnance.
SDF fighters, their heads covered in traditional flowered Kurdish scarves,
barely flinched at the sound of gunfire further ahead, which was quickly
followed by the roar of airplanes and two booming air strikes.
There were no civilians in the homes or in the muddy streets at the
entrance to Baghouz, only armoured cars zipping sharply around corners in the
crushed town.
It was not the first time the SDF had battled for these neighbourhoods.
After launching their latest offensive against IS in September, their
units took Baghouz easily, but IS recaptured it a few weeks later during a
storm and dug in.
Diaa Hasakeh was back for the second round, but told AFP the town was now
in much worse shape.
“When we took it a few months ago, we’d climb up on the rooftops and pick
dates and pomegranates,” said Diaa Hasakeh, a bespectacled fighter who fought
in the first round and is back for the final battle.
He pointed to the shrivelled pomegranate trees whose red fruit had rotted
on the branch, near yellowed palm trees some of which had nothing left but
their trunks.
“Today, their area of control has shrunk so they’re being more ferocious
in their fighting,” said of the jihadists.
“In the past, they wouldn’t resist a lot as they had other places to
withdraw to.”
– Victory is nigh –
SDF commanders say their fighters have faced explosives-laden motorcycles,
suicide bombers, and ambushes from behind the front line in recent days.
On Saturday, top SDF commander Jia Furat said victory was nigh.
“In a very short time, not longer than a few days, we will officially
announce the end of IS’s existence,” he said.
The jihadists once controlled a territory that sprawled across Syria and
Iraq that was home to millions.
But the “caliphate” their elusive chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared more
than four years ago in Iraq’s Mosul is about to collapse on the shores of the
Euphrates River.
Baghouz, unlike surrounding towns, has two-storey stone villas built by
locals who emigrated to work in the oil-rich Arab Gulf states, an SDF fighter
said.
“Any area with a river running through it is beautiful, but anywhere that
Daesh goes is ruined,” said Hasakeh, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
BSS/AFP/RY/1615 hrs