[VOA News] Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(IS) Lions of Islam pledged to fight to the death after U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the start of the final push to liberate the last IS pockets in the eastern countryside of Deir el-Zour.
Suhaib Jaber, a Syrian journalist from Deir el-Zour working with the Euphrates Post, told VOA that IS urged its members, as well as civilians in the areas under its control, to unite and fight without negotiations or surrender.
"Disputes escalated between IS Syrian fighters and IS imported muscle after the disappearance of their leader, His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
...the head of ISIS, or what remains of it, and a veteran of the Abu Graib jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us. So far he has been killed at least four times, though not yet by a stake through the heart.... The allegiance came to unite them in one battle," Jaber said.
IS has resorted to the "Allegiance of Death" tactic during its last hours in the areas under its control after being cornered during battles to free djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria.
U.S.-Backed Fighters Advance against IS in East Syria
[AnNahar] U.S.-backed fighters were advancing on Monday against Islamic State group jihadists hiding out in a small sliver of desert in eastern Syria, the force and a monitor said.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, has been bearing down on the small IS-held zone along the Euphrates River since May 1.
On Monday, SDF front man Kino Gabriel told AFP the forces were securing the village of Baghuz, captured after overnight festivities and the first to be seized since the operation began.
"It is now being cleared of anything left behind by ISIS, including mines, and we are looking for any IS members hiding in tunnels or other locations," Gabriel said, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
"We will set up defensive positions so that we can completely surround ISIS along the Euphrates River," he said.
Baghuz lies on the river's eastern bank, a few hundred meters (yards) from the Iraqi border.
Gabriel said the operation was carried out in coordination with Iraqi government forces and the U.S.-led coalition.
The SDF has already driven IS out of large parts of northern and eastern Syria, including the onetime jihadist capital of Raqa, with help from the coalition's air strikes, weapons and special forces advisers.
At the beginning of May, the SDF announced it would pursue IS in its final desert holdout in east Syria between the Euphrates and the Iraqi border.
It has already cleared around 64 square kilometers (nearly 25 square miles) since then, the coalition said on social media.
The coalition published images of General Joseph Votel, the commander of U.S. troops in the Middle East, s.haking hands with SDF commanders.
"Coalition and U.S Generals meet our SDF partners to gain a better understanding of the fight against ISIS in the Middle Euphrates River Valley," it wrote.
After several months of relatively few air strikes in Syria, it ramped up its bombing raids at the beginning of this month to back the SDF's ground operations.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britannia-based monitor, confirmed the SDF had captured Baghuz after fierce festivities overnight.
It said 18 IS fighters were also killed in coalition strikes and fighting in al-Bahra, a village further north along the river.
The monitor said IS still controlled three main villages in the area: Hajjin, Sousa, and al-Shaafa.