To the bitter end, IS militants remain organized and brutal

BAGHOUZ, Syria -- As defeat looms, militants of the Islamic State group have remained organized and ruthless to their last breath. Keeping institutions functioning in their last shred of territory in Syria, they have continued benefits such as food and money to supporters while their religious police and fighters still impose their rule of fear and brutality.

Refusing to surrender, the militants have tried to squeeze out any last possible gain. Over the past weeks, they secured the evacuation of more than 10,000 of their exhausted and wounded followers, looking to ensure long-term survival and continued conflict.

The militants -- many of them foreigners, including Iraqis and Central Asians, along with some Syrian fighters -- are now fighting their final battle, holed up in tunnels and caves inside Baghouz, the last village they control. Since Friday, they have put up desperate resistance to renewed pounding by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces aiming to take the tiny pocket on the Euphrates River near the Iraqi border.

Around two dozen evacuees described the group's final days to The Associated Press. They spoke of how IS's once powerful institutions administering the provinces of the so-called "caliphate" withstood the pressure as fighters focused on maintaining control. All those who spoke with the AP asked to keep their identity concealed, fearing reprisals from IS or punishment for their connections to the group.

The evacuees, most of them relatives of IS members, include shattered families losing loved ones and wounded, exhausted and hungry men, women and children -- but some remain die-hard believers, angry and broken, and potential seeds for an already burgeoning insurgency in a country whose social fabric is in shreds.

Widows said monthly stipends from the group were replaced by food handouts, though distribution became less and less regular as food became scarce. They continued to live together in IS-administered guest houses even when the militants moved into tents. Money transfer offices worked until the last days. Bayan a 24-year-old Syrian, said her mother wired money from Aleppo a month ago to help her after her husband was killed.

The militants kept up their physical punishments. They killed a senior Iraqi leader for helping people escape their pocket. The IS religious police, known as the "Hisba," drove around the tent encampment inside Baghouz, urging its residents to perform prayers five times a day. When it was time for evacuations, the Hisba oversaw the operation, calling on the wounded and families to register.

A driver named Khodr in one of the convoys of trucks waiting at Baghouz to ferry out a batch of evacuees last week got a first-hand look at IS's organization and brutality. During the operation, masked IS gunmen stood at alert, two at each truck, while another militant walked among the evacuees, checking names against a list, he told AP.

Suddenly the orderly scene was disrupted. A gunman lashed out at a woman, striking her with what appeared to be a Taser. Khodr couldn't see why -- perhaps she had been confused and hesitated to board, perhaps she argued. Crying and panicking, she fell to the ground and plunged her hands in the sand, trying to ease the pain. When she didn't get up, the gunman fired his automatic weapon into the ground near her, until she stood and boarding resumed.

"It was a terrifying scene," he said. "He hit the woman from a distance, maybe two meters away, pssht, just like that. She fell, and I started to cry."

In a leaked audio recording from inside Baghouz, an IS leader who describes himself as responsible for logistics explains to a gathering of supporters how the evacuation would look, organized from one side by IS and from the other by SDF. He stressed the evacuation would protect their dignity and freedom of movement, a sign of the group's continued outreach to its supporters, keeping up a veneer of consultation with them. The veracity of the recording could not be independently confirmed.

SDF officials have denied they negotiated with IS, but a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, Sean Ryan, on Wednesday confirmed negotiations were taking place, through which the SDF is "diligently" trying to find out information regarding any hostages held by IS.