After losing their stranglehold on Deir ez-Zor and being pushed further from their stronghold of Raqqa, Islamic State fighters have retreated towards the Euphrates river to prepare for what some senior leaders are now billing as a last stand in eastern Syria.

Last Isis stronghold in Syria could fall by October, says UN envoy Read more

Dozens of Isis members have fled to towns and villages along the Euphrates valley after abandoning Deir ez-Zor, where their forces had besieged a Syrian military base and up to 100,000 local people for the past three years.

The city was retaken earlier in the week by forces fighting on behalf of the Assad regime, including Iraqi militia units, Hezbollah from Lebanon, and the Syrian military itself.

The rapid entry into the desert city marked another defining moment in the multi-pronged war against the terror organisation which has seen it lose vast tracts of territory over the past year and face the prospect of comprehensive defeat in both Syria and Iraq.

In Raqqa to the north, where US-backed Kurdish forces have taken the Old City, Isis resistance to a relentless sweep south from north-eastern Syria has continued to evaporate. At least 60% of the city – 14 out of 23 neighbourhoods – is now under the control of advancing forces who expect the rest of Raqqa to be taken within the next two months.

The speed of the assault in both cities continues to highlight the sharp decline in Isis’s fortunes, laying bare its increasing inability to fight as a large cohesive unit, and forcing it back to its roots as a guerrilla organisation. “They are very good at underground war,” said Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi-based scholar on the terror group. “Let’s not forget the damage they caused for many years before they took Mosul.”

Isis leaders have taken refuge in the Syrian town of Mayedin, and retain a presence in the nearby town of Sukhna, as well as Bukamal on the Iraqi side of the Syrian border. Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was reportedly sighted in Bukamal on the first day of Eid al-Adha, a witness has claimed. The witness has previously reported sightings of the fugitive leader which have later been confirmed.

The US government said last week that it did not know the whereabouts of Baghdadi but claimed there were “intelligence indicators” that suggested he was still alive. Both Iran and Russia had previously claimed he had been killed in an airstrike near Deir ez-Zor. Reports of the self-styled caliph’s demise have been frequently made over the past three years. The Guardian has previously confirmed that he was injured by an airstrike near Shawqat in Iraq in early 2015. However, little has emerged about his whereabouts, or health, since.

The Euphrates valley has long been seen as the site of an inevitable showdown between Isis and its hunters, which include the militaries of Iran, the US, Iraq, Russia and Syria, and powerful Shia-dominated proxy forces directed by Iran.



“It is very fertile and prized ground,” said a regional official. “The people there are traditionally conservative and many are allied to the Isis cause. They will be hard to oust.”



Regional estimates suggest that as many as 5,000 Isis members, most of them fired by ideological conviction, have moved into the area, from Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa, and also western Iraq, where an extensive push has ousted the group from all but small pockets of the country.



The battle for the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar was won by Iraqi forces earlier this month after a much shorter than expected battle to retake it. The town of Hawija, further south, remains in Isis hands, but hundreds of Isis members from the town are believed to have surrendered to Kurdish forces in late August, meaning those who remain will struggle to hold the town.



Additional reporting by Nadia al-Faour

