Waiting for Final Nail in Islamic State Caliphate’s Coffin

Waiting for Final Nail in Islamic State Caliphate’s Coffin

A week after U.S.-backed forces announced the start of their final assault on Islamic State territory in Syria, there is little the troops or the countries backing them can be sure of, VOA news reports.

Victory over the last remnant of the terror group’s self-declared caliphate, still seen as inevitable, has been delayed as a wave of humanity fled the ever-shrinking patch of land IS calls its own.

Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces are seen on a military vehicle near Baghuz, Deir el-Zour province, Syria, March 6, 2019.
Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces are seen on a military vehicle near Baghuz, Deir el-Zour province, Syria, March 6, 2019.

‘We have been consistently wrong’

In fact, just about the only thing anyone is almost sure of is what will not be found when the fighting is finally done.

“We’re pretty confident the leadership is not still down in this tiny little, basically, hellhole that remains,” a senior U.S. defense official said Friday, referring to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the terror group’s self-declared caliph.

As for everything else, “We have been consistently wrong, as have our SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces] partners, on how big this is,” the official added, referring to the exodus of IS fighters, women and children from their tiny enclave in the northeastern Syrian town of Baghuz.

Since SDF officials estimated in late February that no more than 1,000 people remained in the bombed-out farming community on the banks of the Euphrates River, the Pentagon estimates about 20,000 people have fled.

Initial estimates from the United Nations and SDF officials suggest the total may be even higher, perhaps closer to 25,000.

Children sit on the back of a truck near the village of Baghuz, Deir el-Zour province, in Syria, March 7, 2019.
Children sit on the back of a truck near the village of Baghuz, Deir el-Zour province, in Syria, March 7, 2019.

Pushed to ‘breaking point’

“The number of civilians coming out of Baghuz has exceeded any prediction of humanitarian actors,” Hedinn Halldorsson, with the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Damascus, told VOA.

Separately, the International Rescue Committee warned Friday the al-Hol displaced-persons camp was being pushed to a “breaking point” by the exodus from Baghuz, with 12,000 people arriving in just a 48-hour period, pushing the camp’s population to more than 65,000.

And more may still be lurking in the kilometers of tunnels and caves extending far beneath the shattered buildings and ragged tents.

A YPG media official tweeted that a message recovered from the phone of an IS fighter claimed 45,000 people had taken refuge in the final corner of the IS caliphate.

Yet as surprising as the numbers have been, U.S. defense officials do not believe it is an accident or a happenstance of the campaign to liberate this part of Syria from IS rule.

“What we are seeing now is not the surrender of ISIS as an organization but a calculated decision,” the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Gen. Joseph Votel, told U.S. lawmakers Thursday, using one of many acronyms for the terror group.

He and other officials warn IS’s goal is to preserve as much of the group’s capabilities as possible as it completes a transition from an almost traditional army to a clandestine insurgency, counting on every man, woman and child to do his or her part.

“The vast majority of these are assessed not to be innocent civilians,” the senior defense official said of the thousands of stragglers who evacuated Baghuz in recent days.

“Some of these folks have been with ISIS for years and have sort of followed the retreating ISIS army, battle after battle,” the official said. “They want to continue this fight even if there isn’t a physical area to protect.”

Yet as surprising as the numbers have been, U.S. defense officials do not believe it is an accident or a happenstance of the campaign to liberate this part of Syria from IS rule.

“What we are seeing now is not the surrender of ISIS as an organization but a calculated decision,” the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Gen. Joseph Votel, told U.S. lawmakers Thursday, using one of many acronyms for the terror group.

He and other officials warn IS’s goal is to preserve as much of the group’s capabilities as possible as it completes a transition from an almost traditional army to a clandestine insurgency, counting on every man, woman and child to do his or her part.

“The vast majority of these are assessed not to be innocent civilians,” the senior defense official said of the thousands of stragglers who evacuated Baghuz in recent days.

“Some of these folks have been with ISIS for years and have sort of followed the retreating ISIS army, battle after battle,” the official said. “They want to continue this fight even if there isn’t a physical area to protect.”