Al-Baghuz Fawqani ( ar, ٱلْبَاغُوز فَوْقَانِي, al-Bāġūz Fawqānī) is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

, located in

Abu Kamal District Abu Kamal District ( ar-at, منطقة البوكمال, manṭiqat Albūkamāl) is a district of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate in northeastern Syria. The administrative centre is the city of Abu Kamal. At the 2004 census, the district had a popula ...

Deir ez-Zor , population_urban = , population_density_urban_km2 = , population_density_urban_sq_mi = , population_blank1_title = Ethnicities , population_blank1 = , population_blank2_title = Religions , population_blank2 = ...

. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Al-Baghuz Fawqani had a population of 10,649 in the 2004 census.

Syrian Civil War

During the course of the Syrian Civil War, the Baghuz area (including the nearby town Baghuz at-Tahtani) came under the control of the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...

(ISIL) jihadist organization. The area was initially administered by ISIL's Euphrates Province, but later transferred to al-Barakah district. During a multi-year campaign in eastern Syria, the town was captured from ISIL by the

Syrian Democratic Forces , war = the Syrian Civil War , image = Flag of Syrian Democratic Forces.svgborder , caption = Flag , active = 10 October 2015 – present , ideology = DemocracyDecentralizationSecularism ...

(SDF) on 23 January 2019, leaving ISIL completely besieged in the town of Al-Marashidah, to the north. However, on the next day, ISIL launched a series of suicide attacks to break the siege, allowing them to recapture parts of the town (mostly the western parts of the town), with the town's outskirts being targeted by air raids of the international coalition. On 7 February 2019, the SDF captured Al-Marashidah and other nearby areas from ISIL, completely besieging ISIL in the town of Al-Baghuz Fawqani, the final settlement under its control in the

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...

Battle of Baghuz Fawqani

On 9 February 2019, the Syrian Democratic Forces, supported by the CJTF-OIR Coalition, launched a final assault to take Baghuz Fawqani and wipe out the last bastion of physical territory held by the Islamic State, opening the attack with a massive bombardment on the Huwayjat Khanafirah neighborhood, with violent clashes continuing throughout the night and into the morning hours. The Coalition said it struck a mosque in Baghuz Fawqani on 11 February, as it was being used as a command and control center by the Islamic State. On 28 February, SDF spokesman Adnan Afrin announced discovery of a

mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...

found 10 days ago in the town. It contained dozens of bodies, including of men and women while heads were also found in the grave. The SDF was trying to confirm whether they were

Yazidis Yazidis or Yezidis (; ku, ئێزیدی, translit=Êzidî) are a Kurmanji-speaking Endogamy, endogamous minority group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran ...

and Islamic State members. A video of Furat FM showed a mass-grave. The outlet's executive said that most of the bodies were apparently shot in the head. SDF spokeswoman Lilwa Abdulla confirmed they found large number of Yazidi bodies though there was no specific number. However, locals said the corpses were victims of airstrikes. The assault to take the town resumed on 1 March, with the remaining ISIL militants and their families besieged and encamped at a

tent city A tent city is a temporary housing facility made using tents or other temporary structures. State governments or military organizations set up tent cities to house evacuees, refugees, or soldiers. UNICEF's Supply Division supplies expandable ten ...

along the river. On 18 March, the United States launched an

airstrike An airstrike, air strike or air raid is an offensive operation carried out by aircraft. Air strikes are delivered from aircraft such as blimps, balloons, fighters, heavy bombers, ground attack aircraft, attack helicopters and drones. The offic ...

which killed 80 people, most of them civilians according to the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. On 19 March, SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali announced that the SDF had control of all of Al-Baghuz Fawqani, with the exception for a few pockets along the shores of the Euphrates river, where intermittent clashes were still ongoing with resisting jihadists. On Saturday, 23 March 2019, SDF forces, backed by the US, retook all of Al-Baghuz Fawqani, ending ISIL's territorial rule over Syria and depriving the group of its final "capital," as well as removing almost all of the territory under their control.

References

{{Deir ez-Zor Governorate, abu Populated places in Deir ez-Zor Governorate Populated places on the Euphrates River