The self-proclaimed caliphate of the Islamic State reached the brink of its final defeat on Friday as Syrian government forces liberated the last major city on one side, while Iraqi forces liberated the last significant city on the other side of the border, N1 television reported.
Militant losses on both sides have reduced the "caliphate" that once ruled millions of people to one Syrian border town, one village on the banks of the Euphrates in Iraq, and some parts of the desert.
Officials from both sides have announced that the final defeat of the militants will come quickly, although they fear that they could switch to guerilla warfare, that is, that they will be able to carry out attacks even without the territories they need to defend.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced Friday that government forces had captured Al Qaim, a town near the border with Syria. This left the fundamentalists who conquered a third of Iraq in 2014 with only the village of Rava, which is located downstream of the Euphrates, on the other side of the coast.
On the Syrian side of the conflict, government forces declared victory in Deir el-Zor, the last major city in the eastern desert where the militants still have a presence. The Syrian army is now about 40 kilometers from Albu Kamal, a Syrian town located on the border across from Al Qaim, and is preparing for the final confrontation.
The US-led international coalition, which is bombing Islamic State (IS) positions and providing support to allies on the ground on both sides of the conflict, announced before the fall of Al-Qaim that the militants had only a few thousand soldiers left holed up in two border towns.
"We expect that they will try to escape now, but we are aware of that and we will do everything we can to destroy the leaders of the Islamic State," said American colonel Ryan Dillon.
"By continuing to hunt the Islamic State in those smallest areas...we are witnessing that they are fleeing to the desert and trying to hide there in an attempt to return as an insurgent terrorist group," the colonel emphasized.
"The idea of the Islamic State and the virtual caliphate will not be defeated in the future. There will still be a threat from the Islamic State," concluded Dillon.
The leader of that fundamentalist group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is also believed to be hiding in the desert near the border.
Surrounded from all directions
After being driven out of its unofficial capitals of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria this year, the Islamic State has been reduced to a shrinking area of the desert surrounded by enemies that include most of the region's countries and world powers.
In Iraq, it is faced with the regime army and armed Shiite groups that have the support of the international coalition led by the US and Iran.
In Syria, the US supports an alliance of Kurdish and Arab paramilitaries fighting north and east of the Euphrates, while Iran and Russia support the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Friday's victory by the Syrian army in Deir el-Zor, on the west bank of the Euphrates, marks the end of a two-month battle for control of the city, which is the center of Syria's oil industry.
The Islamic State held a government enclave in the area under siege for years until Syrian military reinforcements arrived in early September, kicking off the battle for jihadist parts of the city.
"The armed forces, in cooperation with the allies, completely freed the city of Deir el-Zor from the hands of the terrorist organization," the Islamic State announced in the Syrian state media.
City streets and buildings were searched for mines and traps left by Islamic State fighters, a Syrian military source revealed. He added that he did not believe the final battle for the border town of Albu Kamal would involve "fierce resistance" as large numbers of fighters elsewhere had surrendered.
"Some of them will fight to the death, but they won't be able to do anything," the source believes.
The city is "surrounded from all sides, there are no supplies, morale has fallen, and because of this all the elements of the organization's strength are finished", claims the source, and adds that once Albu Kamal falls, the Islamic State "will become an organization that will cease to exist as hierarchical structure," the source added.
"It will become a group of scattered individuals, it will no longer be an organization with headquarters, leadership and areas under its control," he concluded.
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