| | | Date: Jan 29, 2019 | | Source: The Daily Star |  |  |  |
| | Daesh in Syria confined to four square kilometers: commander | Agence France Presse
SOUSA, Syria: The once-sprawling "caliphate" of Daesh (ISIS) has been reduced to a four-square-kilometer pocket of territory in eastern Syria, a senior Kurdish commander said Monday.
With support from a U.S.-led military coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces are in the final stages of an assault launched more than four months ago against the militants’ last bastion.
A dwindling number of Daesh militants, led mostly by Iraqi commanders, are now defending only a handful of hamlets in the Euphrates Valley, SDF commander Heval Roni said.
"Geographically speaking, there are only four square kilometers left under Daesh control, stretching from Baghouz to the Iraqi border," he told AFP in the Baghouz area.
"There are some high-ranking Daesh leaders among them... but we don't know who exactly," said Roni, who heads SDF operations in the area.
The commander said he had no information about Daesh supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who is believed to still be alive and is the world's most wanted man.
In an interview to AFP last week, the top commander of the SDF said that the battle was winding up but that his forces would need about a month to assert full control over the area and declare victory.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 1,200 militants and around half as many SDF fighters have been killed since the start of the offensive on September 10.
The Britain-based activist group says more than 400 civilians have also perished, many of them killed by coalition airstrikes. |
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