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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | ||
| SDF restarts ground operation to clear ISIS from Baghouz town | ||
| 2019-03-02 | ||
...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.... (ISIS) fighters out of al-Baghouz town. "After the evacuation of civilians by from forces from al-Baghouz, our fighters liberated those who were kidnapped by ISIS. There is no one in al-Baghouz except for terrorists. Therefore, our forces began military mobilization and the fight against Lions of Islam to complete the final liberation," Bali tweeted in Arabic. The SDF had paused their operation for several weeks to allow fighters and civilians to surrender to their forces. They are biometrically screened in cooperation with the US-led international anti-ISIS coalition and taken to camps elsewhere in Syria like al-Hol. The area has long been described as the last ISIS stronghold east of the Euphrates by senior US military officials. Weather and US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... 's announced troop withdrawal have been blamed for the lull. Trump agreed to keep 400 forces in Syria last week, but did not reveal a timetable for the withdrawal of more than 2,000 US forces in Syria. On February 27, the US military detailed its air strikes from February 10-23. "In Syria, CJTF-OIR conducted 186 strikes consisting of 426 engagements, engaged 285 ISIS tactical units, and destroyed 189 fighting positions..." Trump again falsely claimed on Thursday that the caliphate had been completely defeated. "We just took over ‐ you know, you kept hearing it was 90 percent, 92 percent - the caliphate in Syria. Now it's 100 percent. We just took over," Trump told US service members in Alaska on his way back from Vietnam.
An unknown number of holdout IS fighters are hunkered down in a small area on the edge of Baghouz for a desperate final stand against the SDF. Bali said the decision to resume the push came after the evacuation of the last civilians willing to leave the enclave and following the release of captured SDF fighters. LAST EVACUATIONS "If during the advance we discover that there are still civilians we will isolate them from the fighting but we are forced to push ahead," he said. He declined to comment on how long the last phase of the offensive might take but the SDF’s general commander Mazloum Kobani said Thursday he expected final victory to be achieved within a week. An SDF commander told AFP that his force is advancing slowly and with caution because of the threat of underground tunnels and improvised bombs. A few dozen people ‐ mostly women, children and elderly men ‐ were evacuated from Baghouz on Friday and trucked to a screening centre. Their number was in sharp decline from the thousands who had been pouring out of the IS-held pocket in recent days. At an SDF screening point 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Baghouz, an Egyptian woman told AFP that IS was preventing men under 40 from quitting the redoubt, including her 27-year-old husband, ahead of a final battle. Nearby, the SDF patted men down and searched their belongings. With aerial backing from the US-led coalition, IS fighters who have been besieged for weeks are unlikely to resist very long. YAZIDIS The SDF this week announced that yet another mass grave was discovered, this time near Baghouz and holding the severed heads of women. While the victims were not immediately identified, local fighters believe the executed women are likely to be members of the Yazidi community enslaved by IS. | ||
| Posted by:trailing wife |