“The campaign to defeat Daesh ends in what we characterize as the middle Euphrates River valley,” British Army Maj. Gen. Rupert Jones told reporters on Wednesday. Jones is deputy commander of the coalition’s military operations in Iraq and Syria.
As ISIS has been under pressure or outright lost its major urban centres, it has been pushed into a roughly 150 kilometer-long stretch of the Euphrates River from al-Qaim in Iraq through to Syria’s Deir ez-Zur, “and that is where the military defeat will be completed,” Jones predicted.
The largest concentration of ISIS forces are now believed to be in that area, according to coalition statistics. Some 5,000 to 10,000 militants are located there, compared to about 2,500 in Raqqa, 2,000 in Tal Afar, and an estimated less than 1,000 in Hawija.
Both coalition and Syrian regime forces have their eyes on the valley area and a de-confliction line between them south of the Euphrates is “holding,” Jones said.
The Syrian army has maintained control over a military base and some neighbourhoods of Deir ez-Zur and Jones said it comes as no surprise that they are now advancing towards this “beleaguered outpost,” making steady process eastward in recent months.
Coalition-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Russian-backed Syrian army now share a roughly 140 kilometre-long flank south of Raqqa where “de-confliction procedures are serving us very well,” said Jones.
Despite the US shooting down a Syrian jet it accused of preparing to fire on its allies on the ground in June, the de-confliction line is holding.
"The reality is we've worked through some very hard problems and, in general, we have found a way to maintain the de-confliction line and found a way to continue our mission," the top U.S. Air Force commander in the Middle East, Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigian told Reuters.
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who has been visiting capitals in the Middle East this week, said during a visit to Jordan on Monday that the line was important as US- and Russian-backed forces are coming in closer proximity of each other.
The US is not in communication with the Syrian regime, Mattis told reporters. "It is with the Russians, is who we're dealing with."
"We will continue those procedures right on down the Euphrates River Valley,” he added.
The UK-based conflict monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), has reported over the past week heavy airstrikes in the Deir ez-Zur area by both coalition and Russian warplanes.
The SDF are currently engaged in a battle to capture Raqqa, the militant group’s so-claimed capital in Syria. Some 55 to 60 percent of the city has been liberated from ISIS after nearly three months of fighting, according to the coalition.
Speaking to reporters in Baghdad on Thursday, coalition spokesperson Col. Ryan Dillon said ISIS would have no safe haven in either Iraq or Syria.
"One of the things we do not want to do is push or have anybody else push Daesh fighters from Syria into Iraq. So whether it’s their leaders, their resources, their fighters, their fighting positions, their money, their how to make oil and how to keep themselves going, their propaganda, none of it is off limits to the coalition," he said.
