(Zaman Al Wasl)- About 300 wives of Islamic State fighters, including French and Libyans, have refused to flee Albu Kamal town near the border with Iraq, as fierce fighting takes place to uproot ISIS from its last stronghold in eastern Syria.
According to Zaman al-Wasl source, the wives, who lost their husbands in fighting with the regime army and allied militias, have decided to join the battle.
They dug trenches around the town, waiting for the Assad forces and militias to confront, the source added.
The regime army declared victory against Islamic State, but last week ISIS militants re-infiltrated Albu Kamal and are still fighting there, as well as in some villages and desert areas nearby in Deir Ezzor province.
Six Russian long-range bombers struck ISIS targets near Albu Kamal, the Defense Ministry said in a statement reported by Russian news agencies on Friday.
The TU-22M3 bombers took off from bases in Russia and overflew Iran and Iraq before launching the strike, they said.
In relevant development, Iraqi forces on Friday captured the border town of Rawa, the last remaining town under Islamic State control in Iraq, signaling the collapse of the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate, Reuters reported.
Rawa’s capture marks the end of Islamic State’s era of territorial rule over a so-called caliphate that it proclaimed in 2014 across vast swathes of Iraq and Syria.
Iraqi forces “liberated Rawa entirely, and raised the Iraqi flag over its buildings,” Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah said in a statement from the Joint Operations Command.
All the forces fighting Islamic State in both countries expect a new phase of guerrilla warfare, a tactic the militants have already shown themselves capable of.
However, Islamic State’s defeat does not mean civilians are now safe, the International Rescue Committee said. Nearly 3.2 million people are unable or unwilling to return home after years of displacement and over 11 million are in need of vital humanitarian assistance, it said.
-suicide bombing-
ISIS suicide bomber killed at least 30 people in car bomb attack targeted US-backed Kurdish forces in Deir Ezzor province, local media unit said on Friday.
The car bombing hit a checkpoint for the Syrian Democratic Forces near gathering for displaced people in al-Faraj village in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor, Salama Hussein from Furat Post news site said.
Zaman A Wasl
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