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Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) Snipers and antipersonnel mines have slowed US-backed ground forces trying to recapture the last armed group enclave in the east of the country. Syria.
Black clouds of smoke erupted Monday in the last territory of ISIL in Deir Az Zor province, while coalition fighter planes fired missiles to support the Kurdish-led militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The SDF launched an offensive Saturday to try to expel about 600 people ISIL 4 km2 fighters from Baghouz village, near the Iraqi border, on the eastern shores of the Euphrates.
The US-led coalition has maintained the pace of shelling on the enclave after an early morning counterattack by ISIL has claimed several lives among the homeless.
"[ISIL] We have launched a counterattack against our forces and we are now responding with rockets, air strikes and direct clashes, "said SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali.
About 1,500 civilians had fled the enclave on Monday. "It seems that there are still a lot of civilians inside Baghouz," Bali said. "We are obliged to go carefully and accurately in this battle."
Bali said that there were "dozens of SDF hostages" captured by ISIL.
The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, a UK-based war observer, said the alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters had advanced in the face of difficult hurdles to overcome.
The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman, said that the SDS was "slowly advancing" on the banks of Baghouz, but warned that landmines, snipers and tunnels dug by the fighters of the town were still in danger. ISIL was an obstacle to progression.
Expected withdrawal of US troops
Backed by coalition air strikes, the SDF alliance has been fighting to eliminate ISIL from Deir Az Zor since September.
The armed group has invaded much of Syria and neighboring countries Iraq in 2014, but a series of military offensives have reduced this territory to only Baghouz.
In December, US President Donald Trump announced the complete withdrawal of US troops from Syria, claiming that ISIL had been "defeated".
The surprise announcement prompted the US military to warn in a report released this month that the group "could probably resurface in Syria within six to twelve months and return to a restricted territory "if persistent pressures were not maintained.
ISIL still remains present in the vast Badia Desert in Syria and has claimed a series of lethal attacks by dormant cells in areas controlled by the SDS.
Analysts have warned that the US decision to withdraw their troops from Syria would leave a void that would "worsen international and regional conflict" for power and influence in Syria.
"After the defeat of the Islamic State, we can no longer badert that the roots of violence and terrorism are over, the latter being an ideological status and not just a military structure", Assaad Bechara, political badyst and editor-in-chief of the Lebanese newspaper Al Joumhouria, told the Associated Press news agency Monday.
"The American allegations of leaving Syria after completing the mission to defeat the Islamic State lack evidence and are totally illogical," Bechara added.
Kurds jostle for guarantees
Trump's decision to remove about 2,000 US troops also prompted Kurds in Syria to seek comfort.
A departure from the United States makes them more vulnerable to the long-term threatened attack by neighboring Turkey, which considers the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) a "terrorist" organization.
YPG haspearly head the SDF, the The main ally of the United States in Syria.
The Kurds largely stayed away from the nearly eight-year civil war in Syria, preferring to build their own semi-autonomous institutions in the north-east of the country.
But the planned withdrawal of the United States has threatened them to come to terms with the Damascus regime, which also opposes Kurdish autonomy.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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