Islamic State group fighters holed up in Baghouz, the last dreg of the once-sprawling ‘caliphate’ that their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed in 2014, responded with small arms fire as the Syrian Democratic Forces advanced.

AFP reporters near the front line saw fireworks-like explosions lighting up the sky over the eastern Syrian farming village after an airstrike hit an underground ammunition depot.
The crackle and thud of gunfire and shelling filled the air, as did plumes of thick black smoke over Baghouz, a small cluster of ruined buildings nestled in a palm-lined bend of the Euphrates.

‘There are tunnels. We’re not sure how many members of the Islamic State are still inside,’ an SDF commander said from a rooftop about 400 metres from the front line.
‘They are completely besieged. They have planted many explosive devices in the houses and on the roads,’ he said.

The jihadists’ last redoubt was said to be about half a square kilometre in size a week ago and it shrank even further with the last few hours of fighting.

The SDF had in recent days maintained a buffer of about one kilometre between their forces and the holdout jihadists hunkered down in their very last bastion.

But they resumed their advance on Friday evening after processing what they said was the last batch of civilians, mostly jihadists’ relatives, fleeing the enclave.

The jihadists are massively outnumbered and unlikely to hold out very long against the SDF, who launched their broad offensive against remaining IS strongholds in the Euphrates Valley six months ago.

Meanwhile, a Syrian jihadist group linked to al-Qaeda killed 21 regime and allied forces Sunday near Idlib province, in one of the deadliest breaches of a six-month-old truce deal, a monitor said.

‘At dawn, 21 fighters from the regime forces or allied militia were killed in an attack by Ansar al-Tawhid jihadists,’ the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
‘Five jihadists were also killed,’ Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the Britain-based monitoring group, said.

Ansar al-Tawhid has ties to the larger Hurras al-Deen group, which is also active in the area. Both are considered semi-officials franchises of al-Qaeda in Syria.

The area of Idlib and small parts of the adjacent provinces of Hama and Aleppo are mostly controlled by the rival Hayat Tahrir al-Sham organisation.

HTS is led by fighters who formerly belonged to al-Qaeda’s ex-affiliate in Syria.

A military source quoted by state news agency SANA confirmed soldiers had been killed and wounded in an attack on their positions near Idlib province.

Loyalists forces had killed some assailants, the source added without giving precise figures.

Referring to the attack, the foreign ministry said Syria ‘will not allow terrorists and those who are behind them to carry on with their attacks against innocent civilians and the armed forces’.

Sunday’s deadly assault was carried out against regime positions in the village of Masasna, in the north of Hama province, the Observatory said.

‘It was one of the highest casualty figures among regime ranks since the Putin-Erdogan deal,’ the Observatory’s Abdel Rahman said.

He was referring to an agreement reached in the Russian resort of Sochi between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Under the September 17 deal, Turkey was supposed to exert its influence over anti-regime groups in the Idlib region to get them to pull back their fighters and heavy weapons from a demilitarised zone.

The agreement was meant to stave off a planned offensive by the regime and its Russian backers that aid groups feared could spark the eight-year-old Syrian conflict’s worst humanitarian crisis yet.

The government assault on the last major bastion of forces opposed to president Bashar al-Assad’s rule has indeed been held off but the deal’s provisions have not been implemented and the de facto truce looks shakier than ever.

Since the Sochi agreement, HTS has consolidated its grip on the Idlib province and Turkey appears to be in no position to deliver on its commitment.

Breaches of the demilitarised zone have spiked in recent days. Another 20 regime and allied forces were killed in three days of clashes about a week ago.