The outcome of the investment of the Hajin pocket seemed perfectly clear: As in Raqqa and Mosul, U.S. backed forced would slowly but surely reduce the pocket in grinding urban warfare until all of its Islamic State defenders were dead or captured.
War has a way of throwing wrenches into the gears of things that seem perfectly clear.
Every black rifle below represents an Islamic State counterattack:
At least some of those positions the Islamic State took seem to have been retaken, but the situation right now is unclear and fluid.
Jerry Pournelle used to say “In war, everything is very simple, but simple things are very difficult.” The Islamic State may be all-but-dead as a territory-holding entity, but it’s not dead dead yet..
There are multiple problems reporting on the ongoing war against the Islamic State. First, the mainstream media hates reporting on any success that might give credit to President Donald Trump. Second, related to the first, none of the national media even seem to have reporters “in theater” where the Syrian Democratic Forces are slowly crushing the life out of the remnants of the Islamic State, and even the international press seems to have curtailed their coverage in the last few months. Third, everything seems to have three or four different names (Baghuz vs. al-Baghuz vs. al-Baghuz Fawqani, etc.), depending on the Arabic transliteration method used. Fourth, the war has reached the stage of “SDF has taken [village you’ve never heard of] from the Islamic State, has met stiff resistance in [another village you’ve never heard of], while also moving into [still a third village you’ve never heard of].”
As of now, the SDF has taken al-Baghuz Fawqani, has met stiff resistance in Marashidah, and moved into the town of Sosah. Those lie (respectively) south-to-north in the Haijin pocket along the Euphrates just north of the Syrian-Iraqi border, in Deir ez-Zor province.
Here’s an SDF video on the investment of Sosah, AKA Sousse, which shows footage of the SDF combat bulldozers that have evidently played a key roll in the fight.
More video showing the liberation of Al-Shajla, a small village between Baghuz and Sosah:
The general plan seems to be to roll up the pocket south-to north supported by coalition artillery and air support.
Earlier combat footage:
Expect more grinding combat in tiny villages you never heard of as the last Islamic State pocket in Syria is slowly, methodically destroyed.
After months of preparation, and while the world’s attention (such little of it that can still be focused on Syria) focused on Idlib in NW Syria, Syria Democratic Forces finally launched their much anticipated final push against the Islamic State’s Hajin pocket in SE Syria.
The final phase of the assault to capture the remaining Islamic State-held territory in eastern Syria has begun, according to the U.S.-led Coalition and Syrian Democratic Forces, its main partner on the ground in Deir Ezzor.
“The last phase of Operation Roundup kicks off soon with the Syrian Democratic Forces leading the way in the Lower Euphrates River Valley to destroy the final remnants of ISIS,” Colonel Sean Ryan, spokesperson for Operation Inherent Resolve, told The Defense Post on Monday, September 10.
“The Iraqi Security Forces have supported the SDF’s maneuver by establishing blocking positions along the southeast portion of the Iraqi-Syrian border and conducting precision strikes against ISIS targets.”
An SDF source told The Defense Post that an official announcement was imminent.
Earlier, AFP reported that the Coalition-backed Syrian Democratic Forces launched a fierce assault against the pocket of territory held by ISIS around Hajin in eastern Deir Ezzor province, citing an SDF commander.
An SDF commander said the assault, relying heavily on artillery and U.S.-led Coalition air strikes, had killed at least 15 ISIS fighters.
“Our forces today began attacking the last bastions of Daesh in Hajin, with intense artillery and air support,” said the SDF commander.
he US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) captured 27 positions around the villages of al-Baghuz Fawqani and al-Kasrah, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, during the last 48 hours, the SDF’s media center reported on September 12.
According to the media center, US-backed forces killed 41 ISIS fighters and destroyed several artillery pieces and bulldozers. Furthermore, US-led coalition warplanes conducted 10 airstrikes on positions of the terrorist group in al-Baghuz Fawqani and al-Kasrah.
#Hajin#Syria: Fight to Retake Last ISIS Territory Begins: One senior SDF official estimates the battle will last two to three months https://t.co/18FRGITTIy
Hopefully this will be the final push to eliminate the last Islamic State-held Syrian territory east of the Euphrates, though there have been previous operations that looked to do exactly that. The biggest difference is that the SDF has now cleared the big remaining Islamic State pocket along the Iraq/Syria border. That means that all their forces in theater (as well as coalition aircraft and Iraqi artillery) can concentrate on eliminating the Hajin pocket. Despite all that concentrated firepower, expect urban warfare to be as grinding and bloody as it was in Raqqa and Mosul, albeit it in a much smaller area…
The ongoing destruction of what remains of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is more of a process than a series of discrete battles at this point. A story I’ve been watching develop the last few weeks has finally achieved fruition: The complete elimination of the large, thinly-populated Islamic State enclave in eastern Syria along the Iraqi border.
This was the situation at the start of Operation Jazerra Storm:
Here it was two weeks ago:
A tweet featuring a map of the operation a few days ago:
(And yes, those blue areas near the Syria-Iraq border on the Livemap are salt plains, not bodies of water.)
Now the pocket has been completely cleared:
The hard nut of the Hajin pocket has yet to be cracked, but that should be next on the SDF list, since the the Islamic State has been completely driven from the rest of Syria east of the Euphrates.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are holding talks with the government in Damascus for the first time on the future of huge swathes of northern Syria under their control.
The Kurdish-majority SDF, founded with the help of the US to fight Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in northeastern Syria, now controls almost a third of the country and is looking to negotiate a political deal to preserve its autonomy.
“We are working towards a settlement for northern Syria,” said Riad Darar, the Arab co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council, the SDF’s political wing.
“We hope that the discussions on the situation in the north will be positive,” Mr Darar said, adding that they were being held “without preconditions”.
The SDF now controls 27 per cent of the country, accord to the UK-based monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, having seized Raqqa and much of the eastern province of Deir Ezzor from Isil militants with the help of US airpower.
The Kurds have used the cover of the Syrian war to carve out a semi-autonomous enclave in the northeast of the country, which it calls “Rojava”.
Rojava is also known as the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria.
This is a very interesting development: “Political wing of SDF to open offices in Latakia, Damascus, Hama, Homs.” The caveat here is that it comes from Al Masdar News, a notoriously pro-Assad outlet, and that I haven’t seen it anywhere else.
At the other end of Syria, Assad’s forces are methodically destroying the Islamic State pocket in the Yarmouk Basin (again the Al Masdar News caveat, but they have the most recent story on the fighting), hard against the Golan Heights and the Jordanian border.
The Yarmouk Basin pocket is one of three pockets of Islamic State control west of the Euphrates. There’s another large, sparsely populated pocket northeast of there, where the Islamic State is active enough to still commit atrocities, and the large, sparsely-populated pocket immediately to the west of Deir ez-Zor.
Likewise in Iraq, there are only two pockets of Islamic State control left: A large, sparsely-populated area east of the Syrian border in northwest Iraq, and a tiny sliver of land between Tikrit and Al Fatah Air Base.
That little sliver has been static for months, with no fighting indicated, so it may just be a map artifact, or an area no one has been able to verify if it’s liberated or not. Keep in mind that the Iraqi government declared that the Islamic State was defeated in Iraq back in December, but counterinsurgencies tend to take time. Espicially counterinsurgencies against Islamic terrorists. It took 14 years to end the original Moro insurgency in the Philippines, and some would argue that it was never entirely eradicated…
Or to put it another way, everything in the Middle East is blowing up slightly more than usual:
Hajin, reportedly the last Islamic State stronghold in Syria, has come under sustained attack by coalition forces. There are supposedly some 4,000 heavily dug-in Islamic State fighters there, but that number sounds way too high, being about the number of Islamic State fighters who defended the much larger Raqqa. Hajin is described as a “small city,” but it really looks more like a large town, perhaps on the order of a county seat for a mid-sized Texas county. It’s hard to imagine 4,000 besieged defenders holding out in a such a small area for the eight months since the fall of Deir Ez-Zor, just on the logistical difficulties of maintaining food and ammunition. But anything close to that number would explain why that Islamic State pocket has been so hard to eradicate. But the area is now being pounded with Syrian Democratic Forces artillery and coalition airstrikes, while SDF ground forces push into Hajin.
There was a report that “More than 30 soldiers and officers of the pro-Assad forces, including 13 officers, were killed by aerial bombardment in attempt to seize Hajin.” Since the Islamic State has no air force beyond the occasional drone, that would mean the coalition was bombing pro-Assad forces because they were on the east side of the Euphrates. But at least one Tweet suggests that report is false. “There was no attack by the Syrian Arab Army towards Hajin and there are no clashes between the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian Arab Army. These attacks are only happening on social media.”
The SDF has also been making a large (and largely under-reported) push to roll-up what remains of the Islamic State in sparsely-occupied eastern Syrian along the Iraqi border, capturing a string of tiny villages as they push south.
Widespread unrest has broken out across southern Iraq (with a few outbreaks elsewhere), including strikes, protests and street blockages over government incompetence at providing basic services like electricity and water.
Finally, Israel and Hamas went at it again. Hamas fired a bunch of projectiles into Israel, and Israel walloped a bunch of Hamas assets in Gaza. You know: the usual. But the Israel retaliatory raids were reportedly the biggest on Gaza since 2014.
But then a funny thing happened. That theater of the war seemed to go into a sort of hibernation as other theaters in Syria (the Turkish incursion, the continued war in western Syria, and recently Israel bombing Iranian positions) heated up. That left several disjointed enclvaes of Islamic State control. Here’s what things looked like in at the end of 2017:
Notice that little Islamic State pocket along the Euphrates southeast of Deir ez-Zor running from Hajin to Abu Kamal on the Iraqi border. One of the great mysteries of the war is why that enclave wasn’t crushed following the fall of Deir Ez-Zor. Instead, it remained there, largely unchanged, for half a year.
The #JazeeraStorm operation aims at clearing the ISIS pocket in the northeast of Syria near Deir Ezzor. Syrian Democratic Forces are leading the charge under the cover of Coalition and Iraqi jets. The fight will be hard, but all struggles against tyranny are. Map via @Gargaristanpic.twitter.com/ZehICEla70
— Anthony Avice Du Buisson ♔ (@StoicViper) May 9, 2018
Today the village of Baqhous, directly on the Iraqi border, was captured, meaning the SDF have successfully pushed to the Euphrates there and are cooperating with Iraqi army troops to secure the border.
It’s possible that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may be hiding in the Euphrates pocket. Given how elusive al-Baghdadi has been in previous phases of the war, I’ll believe it when we announce his capture.
Talk of drawing down America’s presence in the Middle East should not obscure the fact that there are many American soldiers still in harm’s way over there, including Master Sgt. Johnathan J. Dunbar of Austin, who was killed by an IED in Syria:
The Defense Department on Saturday identified the American soldier supporting Operation Inherent Resolve who was killed after an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated near his patrol.
That soldier was Master Sgt. Johnathan J. Dunbar, 36, of Austin, Texas, who was assigned to Headquarters, U.S. Army Special Operations Command, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He died from injuries sustained during the IED attack, the Pentagon said.
Two U.S.-led Coalition personnel were killed on Thursday, and five others wounded, in Mangij [AKA Manbij], Syria.
Dunbar’s death marks the first death of an American service member in Syria or Iraq this year.
Manbij is in the Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria. It is controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces but is close to Turkey’s incursion.
This was “the second U.S. combat death in Syria. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Scott C. Dayton, was killed by an improved explosive device in November 2016.”
Condolences to his friends and family, and best wishes for the other U.S. military personnel to quickly achieve complete victory and come home safely.
Happy Good Friday! Spring has sprung and I’m knee-deep in my taxes.
The sitcom Roseanne‘s return features the titular character as a Trump supporter and enjoys smash ratings.
French President Emmanuel Macron talks about sending forces to Syria to block Turkey, then almost immediately walks it back, offering to “mediate” between Turkey and the coalition-backed, Kurd-led Syrian Democratic Forces. That’s…interesting.
Headline: “POPE SAYS HELL DOESN’T EXIST!” (tiny print) “According to a 93 year old atheist who has been wrong before, didn’t tape him, and is quoting from memory. And the Pope himself denies it.” Guess I’ll have to cancel that hooker and blow party I was going to throw Easter Sunday, just in case…
When a media source such as Mother Jones or Everytown for Gun Safety implies that “we have a gun problem,” they are making exactly the same reasoning error as if they said, “we have a black people problem.”
And black population was six times more predictive than gun ownership was.
Texas booze lobby defeated in court, paving the way for Sam’s Club, Costco, and other national chains to start selling hard liquor. (Hat tip: Cahnman’s Musings.)
Mozilla launches a “condom” extension to thwart Facebook spying on other sites.
Of all the things to be adopted by the InfoWars right as a bulwark against the radical left, an Austin vegetarian cat café would seem to be among the most unlikely.
Karl Rehn attended the 2018 Rangemaster Tactical Conference and brought back lots of insights on things like engaging active shooters. That’s just the first of four after action reports, and all are worth your time to click through.
In an extensive report from BuzzFeed, cartoonist John Kricfalusi—the creator of iconic Nickelodeon series Ren & Stimpy—has been accused of sexually exploiting teenage girls, promising them careers in animation at his studio Spumco while allegedly grooming them for sexual relationships. One of the women, Robyn Byrd, says it all began in 1994 when she was only 13, after she sent Kricfalusi a video of herself talking about how she wanted a career in animation and how important Ren & Stimpy was to her. Kricfalusi, who was 39 at the time, responded by sending her packages of toys and art supplies, and eventually he helped her set up an AOL account so they could communicate more regularly.
Kricfalusi visited Byrd at her home and told her that she could “become a great artist,” and later he invited her out to Los Angeles, where she says he “touched her genitals through her pajamas” while they were at his house. She was 16. In 1997, Kricfalusi gave Byrd an internship at Spumco; she lived with him during this period, prompting him to allegedly call her “his 16-year-old girlfriend.” Convinced that he was helping her launch the career of her dreams, Byrd moved in with Kricfalusi once she graduated from high school.
Apparently, this was all an open secret in the animation world at the time, partly due to an interview Kricfalusi gave with Howard Stern in which he creepily noted that a “hot chick with big cans and nice legs” he had drawn for a comic book was “underage, too.” People working at Spumco allegedly shrugged off the relationship between Byrd and Kricfalusi, with another former intern noting that Kricfalusi once “left out a drawing he made of Byrd, naked, with a dog ejaculating on her.”
An American drone destroyed a Russian-made T-72 battle tank operating in eastern Syria on Saturday, according to the U.S. military’s command unit responsible for forces in the Middle East — which added the strike was in “self defense.”
No U.S or allied troops were hurt in the incident, but three people inside the tank were killed by a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone, a defense official told Fox News on Tuesday.
The strike was the second by the U.S. against “pro-regime” forces since Wednesday, according to the U.S. military’s Central Command.
The U.S. airstrike took place the same day an Iranian drone was shot down over Israel on Saturday, prompting a counter-attack by the Israeli Air Force into Syria against Iranian and regime targets. An Israeli F-16 was shot down during that mission, and it crash landed inside Israeli territory.
The T-72 tank came from the “same hostile forces” which attacked U.S. special operations troops and allied Syrian fighters last Wednesday in eastern Syria, officials said.
“The tank had been maneuvering with coordinated indirect fire on a defensive position occupied by Syrian Democratic Forces and Coalition advisers,” U.S. Central Command said in the statement. “The defensive position was within effective range of the tank’s weapon system. Coalition officials maintained regular contact with Russian counterparts via established de-confliction lines to avoid misperceptions and miscalculations that could endanger each other’s forces.”
The latest U.S. airstrike came less than a week after a massive strike killed 100 “pro-regime” forces, including what defense officials told Fox News were Russian contractors.
That suggests it was a Russian-made tank, rather than a Russian army tank. The T-72 was (and probably still is) used extensively by both the Iraqi and Syrian army, and the Islamic State captured some.
There were reports of Russian ground troops in Syria back in 2015, but I don’t see many reference to Russian regulars (as opposed to special forces) in combat in Syria.
The strike appears to have occurred near Khusham, east of Deir ez-Zor, indicated by the blue circles.
It seems unlikely that Russian army troops attacked American troops and got their asses kicked. But if that did happen, they’ll think twice before trying it again…
Turkey just launched a major military operation in the Afrin region of northern Syria in order to crush U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in the region:
Turkish war planes have launched air strikes on Kurdish militants in northern Syria, in a move likely to cause tensions with the US.
It’s not just warplanes. There are reports of Turkish Leopard tanks crossing the border.
Turkey wants to oust the Kurds, which it calls terrorists, from Afrin region which lies across its southern border.
Some Kurdish groups are allies of the US against the Islamic State group.
Russia has moved its troops away from Afrin, saying it is concerned but will not interfere. Syria denounced Turkey’s “aggression” and “brutal attack”.
Turkey had been shelling the area for two days, ahead of its declaration of a military operation on Saturday.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says Turkey has notified all actors involved – including the Syrian government – about the offensive. Syria denied this was the case.
According to Livemap, Afrin is a very active theater right now:
The yellow area is Kurd-held territory in Syria, while the blue dots are Turkish military activity.
How much, if any, of the area is held by the directly U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces is unclear. (“Unclear” being the watchword for much of the Syrian civil war.)
I can’t imagine that this will improve already-bad relations between the United States and Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s scumbag Islamist government in Ankara. Maybe, as with our erstwhile “ally” Pakistan, it’s time to cut ties with Turkey (and start moving to get them expelled from NATO), as they’ve been more of a hindrance than help ever since Erdogan took power.
