IS brutality returning to Syrian towns

The Islamic State (IS) group has launched more than 100 attacks in north-eastern Syria over the last month alone and is terrorising many towns and villages at night.

The violence is concentrated in the largely desert province of Deir al-Zour.

At night they are in fear [and] in the hands of IS fighters. They used to go to the authorities [for protection] but nobody responds. They always say we don’t have enough arms to fight them, so they evacuate. After sunset all the soldiers related to the SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces] leave the town.”

Amira (not her real name) has relatives in the SDF, a Kurdish-led force which spearheaded the fight against IS in the region with the support of a US-led coalition, driving it out of territory the jihadists had captured and controlled. She says her town is now a terrifying place after darkness falls.

At the time, America’s then president, Donald Trump, announced that the group had been “100 per cent defeated”, but that assertion has proved to be well wide of the mark. Last year, IS claimed to have carried out nearly 600 attacks in Syria and more than 1,400 in neighbouring Iraq.