Tag Archives: U.s. backed Syrian Democratic forces

‘Tomorrow we’ll be in paradise’: Islamic State followers speak from besieged enclave

By Lisa Barrington

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Even as it faced imminent defeat in its last populated territory in eastern Syria, Islamic State made a new propaganda film calling on the few remaining residents of its cold, besieged encampment to maintain their prayers and seek refuge in God.

“Servants of God, keep reciting your prayers and ask for forgiveness,” the loudspeaker of a beaten up van cries as it tours the ramshackle camp in the video. “Repent and ask God for forgiveness, oh servants of God, for perhaps the almighty will find a way out for us.”

The video’s tone is a far cry from the jihadist group’s earlier productions, which boasted of victories in taking over around a third of Syria and Iraq at its height in 2014 and summoned followers around the world to join a growing society.

While acknowledging its military setbacks in the face of a global campaign against it, Islamic State uses the new film to urge followers to maintain their faith in IS even in adversity.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said on Tuesday the assault to capture the besieged enclave of Baghouz, near the Iraqi border, was as good as over.

“Tomorrow, God willing, we will be in paradise and they will be burning in hell,” said an Islamic State member whom the video identified as Abu Abd al-Azeem, whose speech is peppered with Koranic recitations.

Though the physical “caliphate” it declared in 2014 is now in ruins, the video showed Islamic State has not renounced its claim to be the contemporary heirs to Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, sovereign over all Muslim lands and people.

“The infidels laughed at, humiliated us in this world, but war has its ups and downs and the battle is not over,” al-Azeem said, adding that IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the only Muslim leader on earth today.

Azeem, wrapped in a thick winter cloak, sits on the ground around a steaming cooking pot. Next to him is a bored-looking boy of around 10 years old, peering out from a thick coat hood.

SIEGE

The SDF has been laying siege to Baghouz for weeks but repeatedly postponed its final assault to allow the evacuation of thousands of civilians, many of them wives and children of Islamic State insurgents. The attack resumed on Sunday, backed by coalition air strikes.

The video, uploaded to IS online channels overnight, shows a community living on farmland in rough dwellings made of blankets, tents, trucks and trailers.

Men eat soup-like food from pots cooking on outdoor fires, sitting on upturned buckets or on the floor. As thousands of people flooded out of Baghouz in recent weeks, many told of severe shortages, with people reduced to eating grass at times.

Azeem implores watchers not to focus on worldly conditions, suggesting those still in Baghouz were martyrs as he referenced part of the Koran that describes how a group of people were burned in a ditch because of their strong belief in God.

After its sudden advance across swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, Islamic State’s wholesale slaughter or sexual enslavement of minorities and its grotesque public killings roused global anger.

Al-Azeem says all IS wanted to do was apply God’s law.

“Why are we bombed by planes, why do all the nations of the unbelieving world come together to fight us? … What is our guilt? What is our crime? We (just) wanted to apply the sharia of God,” he said.

Titled “The Meaning of Constancy, from Baghouz”, the video is dated with the Islamic month of Rajab, which began on March 9, but it is unclear exactly when it was filmed.

Over the course of the video, dozens of men with faces wrapped in scarves, young boys and the occasional woman dressed in black robes are seen milling around the encampment.

A bustling main street in the enclave is lined with small trucks and tent structures. People make their way along the street by motor bike or on foot.

IS still operates in remote territory elsewhere in Syria and Iraq and it is widely assessed that it will continue to represent a potent security threat after the fall of Baghouz.

“Do not be afraid, brothers, be cheerful and have faith,” said a man the video called Abu Addallah. A black balaclava obscured all but his eyes, and he spoke with a North African accent.

(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelaty in Cairo and Laila Bassam in Beirut; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Mass grave found in last Islamic State bastion: SDF

FILE PHOTO: Buses that carry civilians are seen parked near Baghouz, Deir Al Zor province, Syria February 11, 2019. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo

By Ellen Francis

DEIR AL-ZOR PROVINCE, Syria (Reuters) – A mass grave containing the bodies of dozens of people killed by Islamic State, including many women, has been found in territory recently seized by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an SDF official said on Thursday.

The SDF is poised to wipe out the last vestige of Islamic State’s territorial rule at the besieged village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border. But the operation has been held up as the SDF seeks to evacuate thousands of civilians.

“We will announce the complete victory over Daesh (Islamic State) in a week,” SDF commander-in-chief Mazloum Kobani said in a video released by the SDF on Thursday, speaking during a meeting with a group of SDF fighters freed from IS captivity.

It was not immediately clear when the video was filmed.

The SDF announced on Thursday it had freed 24 of its fighters from the jihadist group.

The Islamic State (IS) enclave at Baghouz, a tiny area on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, is the last populated territory held by the jihadists who have been steadily driven by an array of enemies from swathes of land they once held.

Though the fall of Baghouz will mark a milestone in the campaign against IS, the group is still seen as a security threat, using guerrilla tactics and still holding some territory in a remote area west of the Euphrates River.

The mass grave was found around one week ago in an area of Baghouz already seized from IS and is still being excavated, SDF commander Adnan Afrin told Reuters. It was not clear when the people had been killed.

The SDF was seeking to confirm whether the bodies, most of them decapitated, were those of Yazidi sect members enslaved by IS, he said, adding: “They were slaughtered.”

Thousands of members of the minority Yazidi sect from Iraq were forced into sexual slavery by IS when they surged across the border in 2014 and seized swathes of territory.

More than 3,000 other Yazidis were killed in an onslaught the United Nations later described as genocidal, which prompted the first U.S. air strikes against IS. Thousands more fled on foot and many remain displaced more than four years later.

CAVES AND TUNNELS

Some 40,000 people have crossed from the jihadists’ diminishing territory in the last three months as the U.S.-backed SDF sought to finish off the group. The numbers of people, who are still pouring out of Baghouz, have surpassed initial estimates.

Afrin said many of the people coming out of Baghouz had been underground in caves and tunnels.

The SDF has said it wants to evacuate civilians inside Baghouz before storming it or forcing the surrender of the remaining jihadists, who the SDF has said are mostly foreigners.

The U.S.-led coalition said Baghouz had been “more crowded with both civilians and fighters than expected”.

“The overflow during the lull in battle has been difficult for the SDF and they have responded to everything well …,” said Colonel Sean Ryan, the coalition spokesman.

Afrin said the 24 fighters who were announced freed on Thursday were mostly captured by IS during the Deir al-Zor campaign and were rescued by its special forces based on intelligence.

The SDF has said several hundred jihadists are believed to be holed up in Baghouz, a cluster of hamlets surrounded by farmland on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River.

Afrin said there had been no negotiations with IS but “in the future it is possible they will request negotiations to surrender”. He said IS was still holding hostages inside Baghouz, both civilians and SDF fighters.

(Additional reporting by Rodi Said in Deir al-Zor, Omar Fahmy in Cairo and Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Stephen Kalin/Tom Perry; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Gareth Jones)