The Syrian soldiers in this dust-covered, rubbelised town don’t smile very much and their battle fatigue is obvious. They wear an assortment of T-shirts and scarves and black headbands – not unlike their Isis enemies — and when a radio crackles the news that an officer has been killed by a mine in a neighbouring village, they show no immediate reaction. Combat troops don’t look like the men at headquarters with their neat uniforms and clip-boards and strategic explanations. But in Deir Hafer, these Syrian soldiers are lucky. Twelve hours ago, their Isis enemies – rather than fighting to the death — suddenly fled for their lives.

The crushed buildings and flattened houses of this empty provincial town on the highway to Raqqa show just what happened. The Syrian and Russian jets tore the place to bits and then the Syrian army swept in so fast from either side that Isis had time only to abandon their front line. Over three weeks, they had fought off the Syrians with suicide trucks and from a vast network of trenches on each side of the motorway and then – unlike their comrades in the streets of Mosul far to the east – they ran for their lives. An astounding thought. Did the lives of Isis men actually matter after all? Had the death cult of the ‘Caliphate’ in this place of desolation suddenly collapsed?

MORE:   http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-deir-hafer-syria-army-soldiers-town-village-death-muder-islamic-state-daesh-murder-killing-army-a7660481.html