webfact Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 IS 'caliphate' on brink of defeat in Syria as Trump urges Europe to do more By Rodi Said FILE PHOTO - Members of an Iraqi Special forces intelligence team talk to suspected Islamic State fighters in Mosul, Iraq November 27, 2016. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic/File Photo NEAR BAGHOUZ, Syria (Reuters) - U.S.-backed fighters in Syria are poised to capture Islamic State's last, tiny enclave on the Euphrates, the battle commander said on Saturday, bringing its self-declared caliphate to the brink of total defeat as U.S. President Donald Trump spoke of "100 percent victory". Jiya Furat said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had cornered the remaining militants in a neighbourhood of Baghouz village near the Iraqi border, under fire from all sides. "In the coming few days, in a very short time, we will spread the good tidings to the world of the military end of Daesh," he said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. He was speaking after Trump said on Friday there would be "great announcements" about Syria over the next 24 hours. Trump on Saturday said the caliphate was "ready to fall and that the United States was asking European allies to take back more than 800 Islamic State fighters captured in Syria and put them on trial. "The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 ISIS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial," he said in a Tweet. "The Caliphate is ready to fall. The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them... "....The U.S. does not want to watch as these ISIS fighters permeate Europe, which is where they are expected to go. We do so much, and spend so much - Time for others to step up and do the job that they are so capable of doing. We are pulling back after 100% Caliphate victory!" Trump has sworn to pull U.S. forces from Syria after Islamic State's territorial defeat, raising questions over the fate of Washington's Kurdish allies and Turkish involvement in northeast Syria. As the SDF advanced under heavy U.S. airstrikes in recent days, a stream of civilians fled the few square miles of hamlets and farmland that remain within Islamic State's 'caliphate', along with defeated jihadists trying to escape unnoticed. Though Islamic State fighters still hold out in a pocket of central Syria's remote desert, and have gone underground as sleeper cells in Iraqi cities, able to launch new attacks, their territorial rule is, for now, almost over. It ends a project launched from the great mediaeval mosque of Mosul in northern Iraq in 2014, when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi seized advantage of regional chaos to proclaim himself caliph, suzerain over all Muslim people and land. He set up a governing system with courts, a currency and flag that at its height stretched from northwest Syria almost to Baghdad, encompassing some two million inhabitants. HUMAN SHIELDS But its reign of terror over minorities and other perceived enemies, marked by massacres, sexual slavery and the beheading of hostages, drew a forceful international military response that pushed it steadily back from 2015. Most of the fighters left in Baghouz are foreigners, the SDF has said, among the thousands drawn by Baghdadi's promise of a new jihadist utopia straddling the Iraqi-Syrian border and expunging national borders. All that remains, said Furat, is an encircled pocket some 700 metres square. "Thousands of civilians are still trapped there as human shields," he said. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the SDF had taken control of all of Baghouz after the jihadists there surrendered. SDF officials denied this. Spokesman Mustafa Bali said the SDF had caught several militants trying to flee among the civilians. Others had handed themselves over. Their fate, and that of their families, has befuddled foreign governments, with few ready to repatriate citizens who pledged allegiance to a group sworn to their destruction, but who might be hard to legally prosecute. The SDF does not want to hold them indefinitely. The fate of Baghdadi is also a mystery. He has led the group since 2010, when it was still an underground al-Qaeda offshoot in Iraq. STILL A THREAT Its capacity then for strategic retreats in hard times, followed by rebounds when circumstances changed, has prompted numerous warnings that Islamic State's defeat has not ended the threat it poses to the region. Islamic State suffered crippling defeats in 2017, when Iraq recaptured Mosul, the SDF seized its Syrian capital of Raqqa, and the Damascus government pushed it east to the Euphrates. But in Iraq it has switched to guerrilla hit-and-run tactics, aimed at undermining the Baghdad government. It has also claimed responsibility for a series of bombings in swathes of northeast Syria held by the SDF, including one last month that killed four Americans. That attack came soon after Trump pledged to pull out, saying Islamic State was already defeated, rattling allies and prompting defence secretary Jim Mattis to resign. Turkey, which regards the SDF's strongest component, the Kurdish YPG, as terrorists, has threatened to march deeper into northern Syria to drive it back. On Friday U.S. Army General Joseph Votel, who oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East as head of Central Command, said the end of the territorial caliphate would lead to a more dispersed, harder-to-detect network of fighters waging guerrilla warfare. That should require continued help from Washington, he said. (Reporting by Rodi Said in eastern Syria; Writing by Ellen Francis, Angus McDowall in Beirut and Nick Macfie in London; Editing by Mark Potter, Gareth Jones and Sam Holmes) -- © Copyright Reuters 2019-02-18 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardColeman Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 That'll push some people further down the UK council Housing list Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smedly Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 these excuses for men scum had visions of riches and young girl slaves - didn't work out did it since their war crimes were committed in Syria then leave them there to be dealt with Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunken Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 When he says 'put them on trial' does he mean Guantanamo-style 'trials'? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxboy Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 repatriating these zealots is a crazy idea. They may have lost their war but they haven't necessarily lost their fanatical beliefs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simple1 Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 39 minutes ago, khunken said: When he says 'put them on trial' does he mean Guantanamo-style 'trials'? trump's blah, blah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trouble Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 14 hours ago, smedly said: these excuses for men scum had visions of riches and young girl slaves - didn't work out did it since their war crimes were committed in Syria then leave them there to be dealt with Agree, turn them over to the Assad regime. Hopefully quick trials and a firing squad. Be rid of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opl Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 Daesh is not defeated because Daesh is not in Syria - Daesh is in people's minds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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