Operation Roundup: The Final Battle with ISIS Enters Last Phase in Syria

Children living in eastern Syria recently emerged from their homes to find Islamic State fighters gone for the first time in more than four years. They had finally been liberated from control by the extremists. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and their US-led anti-ISIS coalition partners are in a multi-phase offensive designed to clear ISIS remnants from eastern Syria.

In a discussion with The Jerusalem Post, Col. Sean Ryan, a spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the campaign to defeat ISIS that began in 2014, described the recent battles. The fighting against ISIS is done by the SDF, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters from eastern Syria that has been fighting ISIS for years and liberated Raqqa last fall. Although ISIS lost its capital and other major cities last year in Iraq and Syria, it continued to hold on to desert areas. It has now taken the better part of another year to clear ISIS from the remaining 2% of the land area it once held.


https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/operation-roundup-the-final-battle-with-isis-ente