Date: Oct 29, 2018 Source: The Daily Star Daesh repels SDF from east Syria holdout: activist group BEIRUT/ISTANBUL: Daesh (ISIS) has ousted a U.S.-backed coalition of Kurdish and Arab forces from its holdout in eastern Syria, killing dozens of fighters, an activist group said Sunday. A Syrian Democratic Forces commander, asking not to be identified, confirmed the SDF retreat from the Hajin pocket near the Iraqi border seven weeks into an offensive. The SDF launched a campaign to retake the Daesh holdout on Sept. 10. But they have faced a fierce retaliation from the militant, including under the cover of sandstorms, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says. “In counterattacks since Friday to Sunday dawn, IS [Daesh] has taken back all positions to which the SDF had advanced inside the Hajin pocket,” the observatory’s chief Rami Abdel-Rahman said. The observatory reported 72 SDF fighters killed, as Daesh took advantage of the storm that hampered coalition air cover and dispatched suicide bombers as part of their counteroffensive. The SDF commander told AFP that his forces had faced a “strong dust storm” and lacked local knowledge of the terrain. Unlike Daesh, “our forces don’t know the area and can’t move around in conditions of zero visibility,” he said. “Military reinforcements and heavy weapons have been sent to the front and some units will be replaced by more experienced ones,” the commander said. “We will launch a new military campaign as soon as those reinforcements have arrived,” he said. More than 300 SDF fighters and around 500 Daesh militants have been killed in the past seven weeks of fighting, the observatory says. The coalition estimates that 2,000 Daesh fighters remain in the Hajin area. Daesh overran large swaths of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a “caliphate” across land it controlled. But the militant group has since lost most of that territory to various offensives in both countries. In Syria, its presence has been reduced to parts of the vast Badia desert also in the east and the Hajin pocket.Separately, the Turkish army shelled positions Sunday held by the U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria, east of the Euphrates River, in a new spike in tension along the borders. The Syrian militias, known as the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or the YPG, are the backbone of the U.S.-backed force that is fighting Daesh. The alliance between the Kurdish fighters and Washington soured relations between the two NATO members. The rare Turkish shelling east of the Euphrates comes a day after an international summit on Syria hosted by Turkey, which called for an inclusive political process and for creating conditions to allow the return of millions of refugees. A statement released in Istanbul by the leaders of Turkey, Russia, France and Germany called for “an inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process,” and the convening of a committee by the end of the year to work on several constitutional reforms as a prelude to U.N.-backed free and fair elections. The leaders noted the cease-fire in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, which they hope can provide some momentum for peace efforts. The truce last month prevented a Syrian government offensive on the last rebel stronghold, which many feared would have set off another refugee crisis. At the summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey has been among those most harmed by “terror organizations” in Syria. “We will continue eliminating threats against our national security at its root in the Euphrates’ east as we have done so in its west,” Erdogan said. Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency said Turkish artillery strikes Sunday hit trenches and positions built by the YPG on a hill in the village of Zor Moghar, in rural northern Aleppo. The village is across the Euphrates River that separates Turkey-backed Syrian opposition forces and the YPG. The YPG said in a statement the shelling killed a Kurdish fighter from the Self Defense Forces. The newly formed forces are affiliated with the SDF. The YPG said the Turkish shelling was “unprovoked” and is a distraction from the fight against Daesh in eastern Syria. “Any illegitimate attack against northern Syria will not go unanswered,” the YPG said in a statement.