US Takes Senior ISIL Commander Out of Southeastern Deir Ezzur in Heliborne Operation

The US Army conducted another heliborne operations in Southeastern Deir Ezzur to fly a senior ISIL security commander out of the province.

News ID: 443610

Date: 23 February 2019 - 15:13

RNA - An Iraqi security commander of the ISIL, nom de guerre al-Kays, and three other terrorists were taken away from al-Shahil town in Southeastern Deir Ezzur in a US heliborne operation.

Al-Kays was in charge of arresting civilian youth in different parts of Deir Ezzur province.

In a relevant development on Tuesday, the SOHR reported that a military convoy comprising 100 trucks of the US-led forces arrived in Syria's Hasaka province from Amouda-Qamishli passageway in Northern Iraq.

The SOHR noted that the military convoy consisted of 40 empty trucks, 50 covered trucks with unidentified contents and 10 oil tankers.

It was announced earlier this week that the ISIL terrorist group ended its presence in Eastern Euphrates after an agreement with the US Army and its allied militants to exit the region, media reports said.

The Arabic-language al-Watan Online news website reported that the US Army has relocated the last remnants of the ISIL terrorist group to an unknown place from the farms in the countryside of al-Baghouz town in Southeastern Deir Ezzur.

The SOHR, meantime, reported that about 440 ISIL terrorists left Eastern Euphrates in two phases after agreeing with the Syrian Army and the US-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

It reiterated that the US is going to officially declare the end of the ISIL's presence in Eastern Euphrates.

In a relevant development last Friday, media sources said that the SDF are going to declare end of the ISIL in Eastern Euphrates after the latter retreated from areas under its control in the region.

"After ISIL's foreign terrorists left the Eastern Euphrates and tens of them surrendered, the SDF took control of the al-Khanafera and Sheikh Mohammad regions in Baghouz town," sources in Eastern Euphrates said.

They reiterated that the ISIL is only in control of several houses and a camp South of the Baghouz town in an area covering less than 1 square kilometers.

The SOHR, meantime, announced that the US troops and the SDF will soon declare the end of ISIL's presence in Eastern Euphrates as tens of non-Syrian and Western terrorists of the ISIL have retreated from that region.

In a relevant development, a senior source in the SDF said that the ringleader of the ISIL terrorist group Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi "is being protected by the Americans in Eastern Syria", adding that Washington plans to play a Hollywood-like scenario to declare end of the ISIL caliphate.

The Arabic-language website of Sputnik news agency quoted the source as saying that Baghdadi is at present being heavily protected by the American forces in a secret place in Eastern Euphrates region.

He added that the Americans are waiting for an opportunity to conduct heliborne operations by their marine forces in Southeastern Deir Ezzur and declare the capture of al-Baghdadi and end of ISIL on footage.

The source insisted that the time for the "above-mentioned theater is close", adding that the American forces have held SDF back from further advances in the ISIL-occupied regions in Eastern Euphrates to play the scenario.

According to Fars News Agancy, US President Donald Trump said in early February that the country would likely announce soon that the entire ISIL terrorist group caliphate had been retaken in Syria and Iraq.

"It should be formally announced, sometime probably next week, that we'll have 100 percent of the caliphate," Trump stated during his remarks at a ministerial meeting of the US-led coalition member-states.

Earlier, the American president said during his second State of the Union address that it was time to return US troops deployed in Syria back home.

In December, Trump declared the ISIL terrorist group has defeated in Syria, and announced the US troop pullout from the country but gave no timeline.

Also earlier, a senior US administration official told reporters that Syria's Al-Tanf region would be the last place in the country that American troops leave as they implemented a planned withdrawal.

"In terms of Al-Tanf — that is, in terms of the drawdown plans — Al-Tanf would be the last place that we would withdraw from, and I think that’s something that has not been scheduled; it would be conditions-based," the official noted.

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