BEIRUT: A US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance on Sunday ousted the Daesh from a bastion in northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border, it said.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, supported by US-led coalition air power, have been battling to expel the extremists from the last villages they hold in eastern Syria.
“The SDF were able on Sunday to liberate Dashisha village” in the northeastern province of Hasakah, the alliance said in a statement.
SDF fighters “are now just three kilometers (1.8 miles) from the Syrian-Iraqi border,” it said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said fighting for the village since Saturday had killed 30 extremists.
Dashisha was an important Daesh bastion on a corridor linking extremist-held territory in Syria and Iraq, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
On Saturday, the Kurdish-Arab alliance seized the nearby village of Tal Al-Shair from the extremists, according to the Observatory.
Daesh fighters swept across large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, declaring a so-called “caliphate” in areas they controlled.
But the extremists have since lost much of that territory to various offensives — in Syria to Russia-backed regime forces and to the SDF.
In early May, the SDF announced the final phase of its operation against the extremists to expel them from their holdouts in Hasakah and along the Euphrates River in the adjacent province of Deir Ezzor.
A senior Iraqi official said last month Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was still alive and moving between extremist-held areas in both provinces with a small group of followers.
In September, an US military chief said the extremist leader was still alive and probably hiding in eastern Syria’s Euphrates Valley.
Syria’s war has evolved into a complex conflict involving extremists and world powers since it started in 2011 with a vicious crackdown on anti-government protests.
US-backed fighters expel Daesh from eastern Syria bastion
US-backed fighters expel Daesh from eastern Syria bastion
‘No good actors’ in Sudan war, says Trump’s Middle East adviser
- Resolving conflict a ‘deeply felt concern’ of US president, Massad Boulos tells UN Security Council
- ‘Today, Sudan faces the biggest and gravest humanitarian catastrophe in the world’
LONDON: A senior adviser to US President Donald Trump on Thursday criticized Sudan’s warring factions as he warned that no military solution could resolve the civil war.
Massad Boulos, Trump’s senior adviser on African, Arab and Middle Eastern affairs, was speaking at a ministerial-level UN Security Council briefing on Sudan.
A UN fact-finding mission has determined that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces’ siege of the city of El-Fasher likely constituted genocide.
Resolving the almost three-year-long war in Sudan is a “deeply felt concern” of Trump, Boulos told the briefing, which was chaired by UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.
“Under President Trump and Secretary (of State Marco) Rubio’s leadership and close direction, I am helping to spearhead US efforts to achieve peace in Sudan,” he said.
“Today, Sudan faces the biggest and gravest humanitarian catastrophe in the world. After more than 1,000 days of needless conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, the toll is staggering.”
In the eyes of the US, “there are no good actors in this conflict,” Boulos said, criticizing both factions for carrying out “serious human rights violations and abuses.”
He highlighted apparent efforts by coordinated Islamist networks to regain political influence in the fractured Sudanese state.
“Let me be clear: Efforts by Islamist networks or any extremist political movement to manipulate this conflict, derail a civilian transition, or reassert authoritarian control will not be tolerated by the US,” Boulos said.
“We will use the tools at our disposal — including sanctions and other measures — to hold accountable those who enable violence, undermine democratic governance, or threaten regional stability.”
His remarks came as the US announced fresh sanctions on RSF commanders, citing their record of “human rights violations, including ethnic killings, torture, starvation tactics and sexual violence.”
The paramilitary figures are now “subject to asset freezes, arms embargoes and travel bans,” Boulos said, adding: “We are working closely with partners in this room — including the United Kingdom, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and several others — to press for an immediate humanitarian truce, and without preconditions.
“Such a truce must guarantee sustained, unhindered humanitarian access across conflict lines and borders.”
He urged the international community to support five pillars of engagement to resolve the crisis: achieving an immediate humanitarian truce; coordinated efforts to ensure sustained humanitarian access; a phased approach for negotiating a permanent ceasefire; a structured political process that leads to a civilian-led transitional government and democratic elections; and a robust reconstruction and recovery effort.
“The US remains committed to working with all of you to end this tragic conflict and to support a peaceful, civilian future for Sudan,” Boulos said.
