Military operations against ISIS in Syria are wrapping up and the militants’ last pockets will be flushed out within a month, the chief of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said.
"The operation of our forces against ISIS in its last pocket has reached its end and ISIS militants are now surrounded in one area," Mazloum Kobani told Agence France Presse in an interview.
With backing from the US-led coalition, the SDF are in the last phase of an operation started on September 10 to defeat the militants in their Euphrates Valley bastions in eastern Syria.
"We need a month to eliminate ISIS remnants still in the area," said Kobani, who spoke to AFP on Thursday near the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakeh.
A few hundred extremists are defending a handful of hamlets near the Iraqi border, the last rump of a "caliphate" which the terrorist organization proclaimed in 2014.
"I believe that during the next month we will officially announce the end of the military presence on the ground of the so-called caliphate," Kobani said.
Intense fighting in the area known as "the Hajin pocket" has left hundreds of fighters dead on both sides, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
ISIS lost the town of Hajin late last year and the subsequent collapse of its defenses saw the SDF -- an alliance of Kurdish forces and local Arab tribal fighters -- conquer one village after another.
Kobani said their battle had been complicated as ISIS shifted its strategy after the SDF ousted the militants from their de-facto Syrian capital of Raqqa in 2017.
New tactics include "sleeper cells everywhere, secretly recruiting people again, and carrying out suicide operations, bombings, and assassinations", he said.
"We expect there will be an increase in the intensity of ISIS operations against our forces after the end of their military presence."
The extremist organization has retained a presence in Syria's vast Badia desert and has claimed a series of attacks in SDF-held territory.
The SDF have been the main ground partner in Syria of the US-led coalition created in 2014 to fight the militants.
Last month, US President Donald Trump announced he was ordering a full troop pullout from Syria, a move that left the Kurds feeling betrayed and exposed to Turkish attacks.
The minority has since turned to the regime of Bashar al-Assad to guarantee its survival, but Kobani said negotiations were proving difficult.
"Any political agreement should include the special status" of the Syrian Democratic Forces after they fought ISIS "on behalf of all humanity and even the Syrian army", he said.
"This is our red line and we will not concede this."
The Kurdish-led alliance "protected northeastern Syria... liberated these areas, and have the right to continue protecting the region", Kobani added.
