At least 150 Daesh fighters have surrendered to US-backed forces in Baghouz, the group’s last enclave in eastern Syria. The Daesh fighters were among 400 people to leave the area on Monday after the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces staged an assault in recent days.
The surrender comes as relief seeing as the efforts to liberate the last village form ISIS were stalling as the fighters were using civilians as human shields. But despite this hindrance, spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces Mustafa Bali tweeted that the battle to retake Baghouz, the last territory in Syria held by Daesh, was “going to be over soon.”
The US-backed forces resumed their offensive on Baghouz last Friday, after a two-week pause to allow for the evacuation of civilians. Retaking the sliver of land would be a milestone in the devastating four-year campaign to end Daesh’s self-proclaimed caliphate that once straddled a vast territory across both Syria and Iraq.
The surrender is a confirmation that ISIS is almost entirely defeated in Syria and that the territory has been recovered by the Allied troops while at the same time rescuing civilians especially women and children trapped in the last enclave.
