BEIRUT: Thousands of civilians, mostly relatives of militant fighters, are fleeing the Daesh group’s last stronghold in eastern Syria, a war monitor said on Thursday.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 11,500 people have fled the area since Kurdish-led forces broke Daesh defenses and took the militants’ main hub of Hajjin two weeks ago.
“The past fortnight saw the biggest exodus” since the launch in September of a broad offensive against Daesh by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the monitoring group said.
The outfit is an alliance of the Kurdish militia which controls northeastern Syria and local Arab fighters that operates with backing from a US-led military coalition.
The militant group had already lost all of its major urban centers earlier in 2018 but was clinging to the remote area in the Euphrates River Valley.
The SDF launched an operation involving more than 15,000 fighters to smash the militants’ last redoubt, known as the Hajjin pocket, on Sept. 10.
They took the town of Hajjin on Dec. 14, after months of an offensive slowed by Turkish threats against the Kurds further north as well as fierce counter-attacks by Daesh fighters with little to lose.
“Most of the displaced are IS relatives,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Observatory.
He added however that fighters were attempting to blend in with the civilians to save their lives and that the SDF had managed to detain 700 so far.
He said that since the loss of Hajjin, the last town of note in the area, the militants have been unable to defend their positions and were quickly falling back.
Daesh still controls the villages of Al-Shaafa and Sousa as well as a handful of hamlets dotting the eastern bank of the Euphrates.
Abdel Rahman said he expected the last rump of what was once a sprawling “caliphate” straddling swathes of Iraq and Syria to collapse in the coming days.
While it could soon lose its last fixed positions, Daesh remains a threat, with roving units still carrying out attacks from their desert hideouts and cells reportedly regrouping in several parts of Iraq and Syria.
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Civilian exodus from Daesh’s last Syria bastion
Civilian exodus from Daesh’s last Syria bastion
- 11,500 people have fled the area since Kurdish-led forces broke Daesh defenses and took the militants’ main hub of Hajjin
- Since the loss of Hajjin, the last town of note in the area, the militants have been unable to defend their positions and were quickly falling back
Trump demands role in choosing next Iran leader, Khamenei's son ‘unacceptable’
- US president tells Axios US would likely return to war within five years without a favorable leader in Iran
- Draws parallel with Venezuela where interim president Delcy Rodriguez has cooperated under threat of violence
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Thursday insisted he should have a role in picking Iran’s next supreme leader after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose son he said he found unacceptable.
“Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy,” Trump told Axios in an interview, drawing a comparison to Venezuela, where interim president Delcy Rodriguez has cooperated with him under threat of violence after the United States ousted her boss, Nicolas Maduro.
Trump told the news outlet that the United States would likely return to war within five years without a favorable leader in Iran.
“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump was quoted saying by the news outlet.
It was unclear in what way Trump would be able to take a role in the Islamic republic’s selection of a new supreme leader, a decision made by an assembly of senior Shiite Muslim clerics mostly staunchly opposed to the United States. Trump was raised a Presbyterian.
But his remarks imply a willingness to work with someone from within the Islamic republic rather than seek to topple the government, which has been a sworn enemy of the United States since the 1979 Islamic revolution toppled the pro-Western shah.
The late shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, has proposed that he return as a transitional figure before Iran drafts a new constitution as a secular democracy. Pahlavi earlier Thursday said that any new supreme leader within the Islamic republic would be illegitimate.
Ali Khamenei, who ruled Iran since 1989 with hard-line policies that included repression at home and confrontation with neighboring countries, was killed Saturday in an Israeli strike as Israel and the United States opened war.
His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is considered one of the contenders to succeed his father, who was only the second supreme leader after revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
In Venezuela, Trump ordered a deadly January 3 attack in which US forces snatched Maduro, a longtime US nemesis.
Rather than backing the opposition long championed by the United States, Trump has said he has been pleased by Rodriguez, who was Maduro’s vice president but has cooperated on key US demands, notably on benefiting oil companies.
She is doing so under Trump’s threat of violence if she does not do what he wants, particularly on access to natural resources.
“Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy,” Trump told Axios in an interview, drawing a comparison to Venezuela, where interim president Delcy Rodriguez has cooperated with him under threat of violence after the United States ousted her boss, Nicolas Maduro.
Trump told the news outlet that the United States would likely return to war within five years without a favorable leader in Iran.
“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump was quoted saying by the news outlet.
It was unclear in what way Trump would be able to take a role in the Islamic republic’s selection of a new supreme leader, a decision made by an assembly of senior Shiite Muslim clerics mostly staunchly opposed to the United States. Trump was raised a Presbyterian.
But his remarks imply a willingness to work with someone from within the Islamic republic rather than seek to topple the government, which has been a sworn enemy of the United States since the 1979 Islamic revolution toppled the pro-Western shah.
The late shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, has proposed that he return as a transitional figure before Iran drafts a new constitution as a secular democracy. Pahlavi earlier Thursday said that any new supreme leader within the Islamic republic would be illegitimate.
Ali Khamenei, who ruled Iran since 1989 with hard-line policies that included repression at home and confrontation with neighboring countries, was killed Saturday in an Israeli strike as Israel and the United States opened war.
His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is considered one of the contenders to succeed his father, who was only the second supreme leader after revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
In Venezuela, Trump ordered a deadly January 3 attack in which US forces snatched Maduro, a longtime US nemesis.
Rather than backing the opposition long championed by the United States, Trump has said he has been pleased by Rodriguez, who was Maduro’s vice president but has cooperated on key US demands, notably on benefiting oil companies.
She is doing so under Trump’s threat of violence if she does not do what he wants, particularly on access to natural resources.
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