Kurdish-led forces pronounced the death of the Islamic State groups nearly five-year-old caliphate Saturday after flushing out diehard jihadists from their very last bastion in eastern Syria. In wake of the event, US President Donald Trump hailed the end of the Islamic State (IS) group’s “caliphate”.
Fighters of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces raised their yellow flag in Baghouz, the remote riverside village where jihadists of a variety of nationalities made a desperate, dramatic last stand. Trump also had a word of warning for the youth who can be easily swayed. “To all of the young people on the internet believing in (IS’s) propaganda, you will be dead if you join. Think instead about having a great life,” he said.
The SDFs victory capped a deadly six-month operation against the final remnants of the caliphate which once stretched across a vast swathe of Iraq and Syria, and held seven million people in its sway.
SDF fighters last week expelled IS fighters who refused to surrender from an encampment on the edge of Baghouz and have since been hunting down a few survivors hiding on the reedy banks of the Euphrates. The jihadists could still wage a deadly guerilla insurgency. They retain a presence in eastern Syria’s vast Badia desert and various other hideouts.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the offensive has left 630 civilians, 750 SDF fighters and around 1,600 jihadists dead.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, head of IS, probably the most wanted man in the world with a bounty of $25 million on his head, is still at large. Al-Baghdadi's whereabouts remain a mystery, despite numerous claims of his death in the past few years. Though largely seen as a symbolic figurehead of the global terror network, he was described as "irrelevant for a long time" by a coalition spokesman in 2017.
With hope that Al-Baghdadi would turn up, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces zoned in on the last slice of territory held by the militants in eastern Syria at a couple of villages and farmlands near the Iraqi border. It is difficult to move Baghdadi's movements. "He does not use any communication equipment or internet to avoid detection by coalition planes," a senior intelligence official said. "When he wants to see someone from the organization, they are brought to him individually in cars that stop around two hours away from where al-Baghdadi is, and then they are brought to him individually on motorcycles," the official added.
Throughout IS' various operations, Al-Baghdadi has remained mainly in the shadows.
