AL-OMAR OIL FIELD BASE, Syria -- Islamic State group militants, many of them foreigners, surrendered to U.S.-backed fighters in eastern Syria on Wednesday, bringing the Kurdish-led force closer to taking full control of the last remaining area controlled by the extremists, a Kurdish official and activists said.
Ciyager Amed, an official with the Syrian Democratic Forces, confirmed that a number of Islamic State fighters who had been holed up in Baghouz gave themselves up, without giving numbers. He said most of those remaining were Iraqis and foreigners and that few civilians remained in the tiny area still controlled by the Islamic State, although women and children continued to trickle out of the enclave.
The capture of Baghouz and nearby areas would mark the end of a devastating four-year global campaign against the extremist group. U.S. President Donald Trump has said the group is all but defeated, and announced in December that he would withdraw all American forces from Syria.
Amed said the operation was slowed down due to the militants' use of civilians as human shields.
Mustafa Bali, a Syrian Democratic Forces spokesman, said hundreds of women and children came out Wednesday.
Bali also said the fighters who remained appeared to be among the Islamic State elite who have lots of experience and are fighting "fiercely."
"They also don't have other options. Either to surrender or die," he said. He said the women and children coming out are treated as civilians "even if they are families of Daesh." He used an Arabic acronym to refer to the group.
Rami Abdurrahman who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syria war monitor, and Omar Abu Laila, who runs the DeirEzzor 24 group that monitors developments in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour where the fighting is ongoing, said more than 200 Islamic State fighters, many of them foreigners, surrendered.
"The mostly foreign fighters were put in seven trucks and taken away" by the U.S.-led coalition and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, Abdurrahman said.
Abu Laila said "the battle is almost over in eastern Syria with [Syrian Democratic Forces] fighters almost in full control of the last pocket held by Daesh."
The U.S.-led coalition began its final push to recapture the last sliver of territory controlled by the Islamic State on Saturday. Hundreds of mostly foreign militant fighters were believed to be making a final stand there, after months of fighting. They have been fighting back with suicide car bombs, sniper fire and booby traps, and have used civilians as human shields, according to the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The latest fighting caused an exodus of some 20,000 civilians from Baghouz and nearby areas, many of them the foreign wives and children of Islamic State militants. The Syrian Democratic Forces is holding hundreds of foreign fighters it says are a burden on the force, but their own countries don't want them back.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said Iraq will repatriate Iraqi Islamic State members held by the Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria as well as thousands of their family members.
Abdul-Mahdi told reporters late Tuesday that families of those fighters will also be brought back and that tent settlements will be prepared to host them. Abdul-Mahdi's comments came after a meeting he held in Baghdad with acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.
A senior Iraqi intelligence official said up to 20,000 Iraqis, including Islamic State fighters, their families and refugees will be brought back home by April where many of them will live in a tent settlement in western Anbar province.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said Islamic State members will be interrogated by Iraqi security agencies.
Abdul-Mahdi's announcement came a week after the United States called on other nations to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who traveled to Syria to fight with the Islamic State and who are now being held by Washington's local partners.
The Syrian Democratic Forces say they detained more than 900 foreign fighters during their U.S.-backed campaign against militants in northeastern Syria.
Information for this article was contributed by Bassem Mroue of The Associated Press.
A Section on 02/14/2019