Home Current British Isil fighters surrender to US-backed forces amid Baghuz offensive

British Isil fighters surrender to US-backed forces amid Baghuz offensive

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British Isil fighters surrender to US-backed forces amid Baghuz offensiveBritish fighters are among hundreds of Islamic State jihadists who surrendered to Western-backed forces in eastern Syria, a senior commander has said.  Some 400-500 people, including Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) fighters left the village of Baghuz on Monday, in the latest sign that fanatical resistance inside the terror group’s last village is crumbling.   “There are different nationalities: Iraqi, French, Russian, English. I don’t have the exact number at this moment, but they are all fighters,” Adnam Afrin, the commander of Syrian Democratic Forces in the area, told the Telegraph. “Usually we don’t like it when Isil surprises us, but this surprise is a good one,” he told the Telegraph, referring to the unexpected number of prisoners. The surrenders came after the SDF called a ceasefire to allow non-combatants and fighters wishing to surrender to leave. Mr Afrin said the battle was not over and that the assault would shortly resume against the remaining terrorists. Media outlets run by the Kurdish-led authority in eastern Syria said most of those surrendering were from central Asia and the Middle East. SDF fighters often use “Russians” as short hand for any Isil member from the former Soviet Union.  The Telegraph saw hundreds of men and women at a prisoner processing site in the desert on Monday afternoon.  They sat in silence, their heads bowed as they waited to be called one by one for interrogation by heavily armed US special forces soldiers. Several of the men were of non-Arab appearance. Journalists were not allowed access to the prisoners and the Telegraph was unable to immediately confirm the presence of British citizens. The dazed men sitting on the desert plateau are the remnants of a once powerful force that brought terror to millions across Iraq and Syria. The demise of ISIL in Syria and Iraq SDF and coalition spokesmen have described the estimated 1000 defenders of Baghuz as Isil’s most fanatical hardcore, and had expected almost all of them to fight to the death. The assault on Baghuz launched on Friday night is the final stage of a months-long campaign to reduce the groups’ last scrap of territory in a remote part of the Euphrates valley.  As the SDF and Western forces have methodically boxed the group into an ever narrowing patch of ground, morale within the self-proclaimed caliphate has dwindled. More than 1,000 Isil fighters have surrendered in recent weeks, at least 400 of them are believed to be foreigners. More than 10,000 people, most of them women and children, left Baghuz after the initial assault was paused last month.  Isil fighters who surrendered to the Syrian Democratic Forces are processed on a hilltop outside Baghuz Credit: Sam Tarling for The Telegraph Monday’s surrender came after three nights of intense fighting as the SDF and their Western allies moved to destroy the last remnant’s of Isil’s self-proclaimed caliphate. US, British, and French forces have subjected the enclave to relentless airstrikes and artillery bombardment in support of SDF night attacks, but progress on the ground has been slowed by complex tunnel systems and hundreds of booby traps used by the jihadists to fortify the area. As of Monday afternoon the terrorist group still controlled a low-lying lozenge of land several hundred meters across near the Euphrates river. There is still no news of Western hostages, including the journalist John Cantlie, who has been held by the group since 2012. Western and SDF military planners appear to believe that Isil may still be holding hostages and human shields. Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led group, said a major motivation for the methodical stop-start approach was to bring the maximum number of people out of the pocket alive.  “There are still a lot of people taken hostage by Isil who remain unaccounted for. It may seem unlikely, but we would like the surprise of finding them alive,” he said.