The civilians able to escape have fled. Now there are just an estimated 500 fighters, many of them foreigners, making the last stand of the Islamic State’s ‘caliphate’ in a remote Syrian hamlet near the Iraqi border. They include some of the group’s most battle-hardened veterans, many wearing suicide vests and using civilians for human shields as they attempt to resist the surrounding forces using tunnels drilled through the walls of houses in Baghouz.
Once these feared jihadis ruled eight million people in an area the size of Britain, relying on savagery to impose their medieval creed, and social media to woo recruits from Britain and around the globe.
But they have been pushed back into a fast-shrinking 840 square yards pocket beside the Euphrates River – and within days, perhaps hours, Islamic State will be declared dead after five bloodstained years of carnage, chaos and fear.
Civilians fleeing the Islamic State's group embattled holdout of Baghouz walk in a field on February 13, 2019 during an operation by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Force
Ciya Furat, a commander with the Kurdish-led attackers, said yesterday in eastern Syria that his group will ‘very soon bring good news to the whole world’.
The stage has been built to hail this momentous victory. ‘We have won,’ Donald Trump has already declared on Twitter, while Vice-President Mike Pence says the terror group ‘has been defeated’.
Similar bold statements were made 14 months ago in Iraq after troops reclaimed the lost one-third of the country, including its second city Mosul. This was ‘the biggest victory against the forces of evil and terrorism’, proclaimed Haider al-Abadi, the Iraqi prime minister.
Yet listen to the tale told to me on Friday – in a refugee camp filled with families from Mosul in neighbouring Iraq – by Hamida Mohammad Taher about a neighbour who worked for the Baghdad government in the recaptured city.
‘Every day he would go to work and their three daughters went to school. One month ago a group came to their house when just his wife was at home. They killed this woman and wrote on the walls in her blood and brains, “This will be the same fate for you.’’ ’
That was her chilling reply when I asked if IS was still active.
Later, she described the horror of being forced to watch another woman being stoned to death as punishment for failing to cover up correctly.
And it was echoed by other families from the region and senior officers in the Peshmerga, the Kurdish military who spearheaded much of the fighting against IS, aided by Western special forces and aircraft. ‘In daytime the ground is controlled by Iraqi troops but at night Daesh [IS] returns,’ said one Kurdish colonel, a claim I heard echoed by villagers who spoke of jihadists coming after dusk to demand food and money.
A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) armored vehicle drives through destroyed streets near the frontline on February 10, 2019 in Bagouz, Syria
Some laughed when I asked if the group was finished.
These people told me of ethnic cleansing, of kidnappings, of burned homes, of brutal beatings, of revenge missions by militia forces and of scores settled with accusations of collaboration – even in one case in a spat among two suitors over the same woman.
Others spoke of a toxic sense of despair when there is no work and no schooling for children, with homes left destroyed and hopes of peaceful normality crushed. ‘It is like living in a film with different episodes but the same storyline,’ said one middle-aged man.
He was lamenting the loss of Saddam Hussein, whose ousting led US President George Bush to naively declare ‘Mission Accomplished’ 16 years ago after the US-led invasion of Iraq that sparked so much of the misery across this region. The fear among analysts is that Bush’s brash successor in the White House will promote a similar myth, confusing the crushing of a despicable ‘caliphate’ with defeat of their deadly ideology that drew in devotees from around the world.
Among them was Shamima Begum, the London teenager who crossed a continent with two friends to become a jihadi bride. Now 19, and pregnant for the third time, her request to return to Britain last week sparked fresh debate over the repatriation of such recruits.
Begum was one of an estimated 900 Britons who flocked to join the fanatics. Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, has vowed to block her return to Britain, or try her for terror offences if she comes back. It is thought at least 21 female recruits have already returned.
Ian Birrell was told of ethnic cleansing, of kidnappings, of burned homes and of brutal beatings
The former Bethnal Green schoolgirl was found in al-Hawl, a camp with 39,000 displaced people including many IS family members. As the group’s control weakened in recent months, thousands have flooded out – more than 1,200 from Baghouz in the past week alone – swamping efforts to screen them.
Lina Khatib, head of the Middle East division at Chatham House think tank, said land loss would not definitely mean the demise of IS. ‘The group’s foreign fighters remain mostly at large because they have nowhere else to go as they face trials in their countries of origin.
‘IS will try to offset territorial losses with insurgency attacks to prove it is still relevant and, as long as socio-economic and political grievances continue in Syria and Iraq, IS will take advantage of them to try to attract people to its ranks.’
Certainly much of the infrastructure remains in ruins. More than 50,000 homes and 62 schools were destroyed in Mosul alone – as I saw amid the final skirmishes for liberation – and one year later more than eight million tons of debris still needs to be cleared.
Almost two
