Islamic State faces final territorial defeat in eastern Syria battle

A boy holds a baby near the village of Baghouz, Deir Al Zor province, Syria March 1, 2019. REUTERS/Rodi Said

OUTSKIRTS OF BAGHOUZ, March 2 (Syria) (Reuters):  Islamic State faces final territorial defeat as the U.S.-backed Syrian force battling the jihadists said on Saturday it was closing in on the jihadists' last bastion near the Iraqi border, capping four years of efforts to roll back the group.

While the fall of Baghouz, an eastern Syrian village on the bank of the Euphrates River, would mark a milestone in a global campaign against Islamic State (IS), they remain a threat, using guerrilla tactics and holding some desolate land further west.

An array of enemies, both local and international, confronted IS after it declared a modern-day "caliphate" in 2014 across large swathes of territory it had seized in lightning offensives in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

Thousands of IS fighters, followers and civilians, who had retreated to Baghouz as the group was gradually driven out of those lands, have poured out of the tiny cluster of hamlets and farmlands in Deir al-Zor province over the last few weeks.

Their evacuation held up the final assault until Friday evening when the SDF said it had advanced and would not stop until the jihadists were defeated.

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"We expect it to be over soon," Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), told Reuters shortly after sunrise. He said the SDF were advancing on two fronts using medium and heavy weaponry.

The rise and fall of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

Islamic State faces territorial defeat as U.S.-backed Syrian forces attack its final, besieged enclave near the Iraqi border. This timeline chronicles the lightning rise, cruel reign and gradual fall of Islamic State.

- 2004-11 - In the chaos following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, an al Qaeda offshoot sets up there, changing its name in 2006 to Islamic State in Iraq.

- 2011 - After Syria's crisis begins, the group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sends operatives there to set up a Syrian subsidiary. Baghdadi follows in 2013, breaking with al Qaeda and renaming his group "The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant".

- 2014 - Its sudden success starts with the seizure of Fallujah in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria at the turn of the year. The jihadists take Mosul and Tikrit in June and overrun the border with Syria. At Mosul's great Mosque, Baghdadi renames the group Islamic State (IS) and declares a caliphate.

So begins a reign of terror. In Iraq, IS slaughters thousands of Yazidis in Sinjar and forces more than 7,000 women and girls into sexual slavery. In Syria, it massacres hundreds of members of the Sheitaat tribe. IS beheads Western hostages in grotesquely choreographed films.

In September, the United States builds a coalition against IS and starts air strikes to stop its momentum, helping the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia turn the militants back from Kobani on the border with Turkey.

- 2015 - Militants in Paris attack a satirical newspaper and a kosher supermarket, the bloody start to a wave of attacks that IS claims around the world. Militants in Libya behead Christians and pledge allegiance to IS, followed by groups in other countries, but they stay operationally independent.

In May, IS takes Ramadi in Iraq and the ancient desert town of Palmyra in Syria, but by the end of the year it is on the back foot in both countries.

- 2016 - Iraq takes back Fallujah in June, the first town IS had captured during its initial blaze of success. In August, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG, takes Manbij in Syria.

Alarmed by the Kurdish advances near its own frontier, Turkey launches an offensive into Syria against both IS and the YPG. Enmity between Turkey and the YPG will continue to complicate operations against IS.

- 2017 - Islamic State suffers a year of catastrophic defeats. In June it loses Mosul to Iraqi forces after months of fighting and Baghdad declares the end of the caliphate. In September the Syrian army races eastwards backed by Russia and Iran to relieve Deir al-Zor and re-extend state control at the Euphrates River. In October, the SDF drives IS from Raqqa.

- 2018 - The Syrian government retakes IS enclaves in Yarmouk, south of Damascus, and on the frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The SDF advances further down the Euphrates and Iraqi forces take the rest of the border region. The United States vows to withdraw troops.

- 2019 - IS is besieged in its last enclave on the Euphrates at the village of Baghouz.

Wounded and alone, children emerge from last Islamic State enclave

DEIR AL-ZOR PROVINCE, Syria, March 2 (Reuters) - Hareth Najem fled Islamic State's last enclave in eastern Syria wounded and alone. The Iraqi orphan's family had died two years earlier in air strikes across the border in al-Qaim region.

"I had two brothers and a sister. They all died, and then I was by myself," Hareth told Reuters, tears filling his eyes. "My little sister, I loved her a lot. I used to take her with me to the market."

Lying in a cattle truck beside another injured boy at a desert transit point for U.S.-backed forces, he huddled under a blanket. His face was covered in dirt and the side of his head wrapped with bandages covering wounds incurred days earlier.

Hareth was 11 years old when Islamic State (IS) carved out its "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria, killing thousands of civilians and attracting an array of enemies that have fought from the air and on the ground to uproot the jihadists.

Now 16, he was among the children swept up this week in the civilian evacuation of Baghouz, the last shred of land under the jihadists' control where they are on the brink of defeat at the hands of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Some of the children are foreigners whose parents brought them to be raised under IS rule, or child fighters conscripted into what the group dubbed "cubs of the caliphate". Others, including members of the Yazidi minority, were enslaved by the jihadists.

Many have seen their parents die in the fighting or be detained by rival forces. As IS faces territorial defeat, their fate remains uncertain. The SDF investigates all men and teenage boys arriving from Baghouz to determine possible IS links.

'THESE KIDS HAVE NOBODY'

Around 20 children crossed the frontline on their own this week, including Iraqis, Syrians, Turks and Indonesians, said SDF commander Adnan Afrin. The fathers of some were identified as IS fighters and arrested immediately.

"These kids have nobody. They need somebody to take care of them, to provide mental health support," said Afrin, adding that some had gone hungry for a long time. The SDF plans to hand over the children to aid groups, he said.

Hareth said his family had been running a market stall when IS overran their town and they had no links to the group.

After his family was killed in an aerial bombardment, he crossed into Syria with other Iraqis who feared Shi'ite Muslim militias advancing against IS would take revenge on Sunnis - a fear that other Iraqis have cited as their reason for entering IS-held Syria.

Hareth said he tried to avoid the jihadists and denies attending their schools or receiving military training. Their morality police would sometimes arrest and whip him.

"They gave speeches at the mosques, jihad and whatnot," he said. "I was scared of them. My whole family died because of them."

When he reached Baghouz, he worked in a field in return for a room to sleep in. He tried saving enough money to go home, but said the militants stopped him.

Hareth was wounded last week when a shell fell near where he was standing along the Euphrates River, injuring his ear, hand and stomach. He wants to get medical care and return to relatives still in Iraq.

"I want to go look for them ... When I get better and my body recovers, when I can walk," he said. "I want to go back, to become a young man again, to build a future again."