(Zaman Al Wasl)- About 3000 displaced people have arrived to the PYD-held camps in Hasaka province, fleeing the border town of Albu kamal east of Deir Ezzor province, activists said on Saturday.
Some Iraqi families were among the displaced who settled in the deserted al-Hol camp that controlled by the powerful Kurdish militia.
The regime army on Thursday declared victory over Islamic State, saying its capture of Albu Kamal, the jihadists’ last town in the country marked the collapse of their three-year, hardline reign in the in the region.
Approximately 5,000 displaced people, mostly women, children and patients, arrived at the Al-Malha checkpoint on the administrative border between Hasaka and Deir Ezzor, awaiting transfer to Qana or Mabrouka refugee camps.
The army and its allies are still fighting Islamic State in desert areas near Albu Kamal, the last town the militant group had held in Syria, near the border with Iraq, the army said.
Yet after ferocious defensive battles in its most important cities this year, where its fighters bled for every house and street, its final collapse has come with lightning speed.
Instead of a battle to the death as they mounted a last stand in the Euphrates valley towns and villages near the border between Iraq and Syria, many fighters surrendered or fled.
“There’s some fighters left but they’re few. Small numbers is all I can say,” said a Syrian army commander of the remaining militants near Albu Kamal. “Some were killed and some ran away. They went toward eastern or northern villages.”
In Syria, two rival campaigns raced across the country’s east this year driving back Islamic State -- the Syrian army backed by Russia, Iran and Shi‘ite militias, and an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the United States.
Syrian officials and a senior advisor to Iran have indicated the Syrian army will now stake its claim to Kurdish-held territory.
Washington has not yet said how it would respond to a protracted military campaign against its allies.
Zaman A Wasl
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