Daesh abduct hundreds of displaced Syrians from IDP camp — monitor

By AFP - Oct 13,2018 - Last updated at Oct 13,2018

Turkish-backed Syrian rebels remove a rope from the statue of ‘Kawa’ after destroying it in the Kurdish city of Afrin in northern Syria on March 18 (AFP photo)

BEIRUT — Hundreds of people were taken by the Daesh group terrorists from a displacement camp in east Syria during an extremist counterattack against advancing US-backed forces, a monitor said Saturday.

The extremists raided the camp on Friday, taking “more than 100 families” including relatives of Daesh defectors and of extremists killed in fighting, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A number of militants of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) died trying to defend the camp in a battle that lasted several hours, the Britain-based monitoring group said.

The US-backed SDF launched a major assault on September 10 on the small stretch of the Euphrates Valley around the town of Hajin where they estimate some 3,000 extremists are holed up.

But they have sustained heavy casualties in the operation being conducted with US-led air support.

Since Wednesday, 37 SDF fighters have been killed in extremist counterattacks, the observatory said.

Daesh has lost 58 fighters, most of them in retaliatory coalition air strikes, it added.

“Daesh is pressing its attacks in the Hajin area as the SDF battles to hold them off with the support of the international coalition,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

But a prolonged sandstorm has made it difficult for the coalition to carry out air strikes.

Daesh published statements on its social media accounts describing a number of attacks by “soldiers of the caliphate” against SDF forces in the Hajin area.

The battle for Hajin has claimed the lives of 176 SDF fighters and 325 Daesh extremists since its launch last month, according to Observatory figures.

The SDF, backed by the coalition, has ousted Daesh from swathes of northern and eastern Syria, including Raqqa, the de facto capital of the extremists’ so-called caliphate.

Founded in 2015, the SDF is spearheaded by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a powerful Kurdish armed movement.

Hundreds of foreigners have joined the YPG to battle Daesh, which has its own notorious contingent of foreign fighters.

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