Click to see full-size image, source: Hawar News Agency (ANHA)
Commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) attack in the middle Euphrates River Valley said on February 16 that ISIS’ last enclave in the region will be captured very soon.
“In the coming few days, very shortly, we will broadcast the good news to the world, to all the people of the region, the Kurds, the Arabs, the Assyrians, all the people of the region, of the military end of the ISIS terrorist group,” SDF commander Jiya Furat told reporters.
According to Furat, the remaining ISIS fighters are currently besieged within a 600m2 pocket. The commander said that SDF forces are “moving cautiously because there are thousands of civilians being held as human shields.”
“We freed thousands of civilians through the safe crossings, which we opened, and we provided them Humanitarian aid,” Furat added.
The SDF commander noted that the US-backed group’s efforts against terrorism will not end with the removal of ISIS’ last stronghold in the Euphrates Valley. In the next stage, the SDF will begin operations against ISIS sleeper cells and the terrorist group’s remnants in order to fully secure the region.
While Furat claimed that the battle against ISIS has not ended yet, a new report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that the remaining terrorists have surrendered to the Kurdish group under a secret agreement with the US-led coalition.
“An undeclared deal led to the surrender of 440 ISIS members in two groups, the first included 240 and the second 200 … Now the American director is preparing to announce the complete liberation of the eastern bank of the Euphrates River,” the UK-based monitoring group said.
Observers believe that the SDF is trying to delay the announcement of the ISIS defeat because the group’s leadership knows that this could speed up the withdrawal of U.S. troops from northeastern Syria.
