SDF frees fighters held by ISIS, tightens chokehold on Syria's Baghouz
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Thursday announced the liberation of 24 fighters from their ranks that been held captive for months by the Islamic State in the last pocket of territory it still holds in Syria.
In a statement posted on its website, the SDF said their fighters had halted its “direct engagement with the terrorist organization to spare civilians any potential damage.”
“We succeeded in securing a safe passage for civilians, and we managed to free 24 of our forces who had been kidnapped by the terrorist organization months ago,” the statement added.
Regarding the latest developments on the fight against the terrorist group’s last holdout in Syria, the SDF explained that its forces had tightened the chokehold on the town al-Baghouz, located near the Iraqi border, where an as yet unconfirmed number of Islamic State militants and civilians are still present.
Earlier in the week, an SDF commander told Kurdistan 24 that there are possibly more than a thousand Islamic State fighters holed up in Baghouz.
“There is no official record, but there are maybe more than a thousand mercenaries [ISIS fighters] there, most of them foreigners: Europeans, Turks, a lot of Iraqis, Asians,” he said.
The SDF has previously given the terrorist group a final ultimatum to either lay down its arms or face a decisive ground offensive. Most of the remaining militants in the Baghuoz area are believed to be foreign fighters.
One such fighter, a Serb, recently told Kurdistan 24, “I joined the fight in Syria to support Islam and spread it to all parts of the world.” He had initially taken up arms for the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria.
Editing by John J. Catherine