Thousands of ISIS Fighters Flee in Syria, Many to Fight Another Day - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/world/middleeast/isis-syria-al-qaeda.html
WASHINGTON — Thousands of Islamic State foreign fighters and family members have escaped the American-led military campaign in eastern Syria, according to new classified American and other Western military and intelligence assessments, a flow that threatens to tarnish American declarations that the militant group has been largely defeated.
As many of the fighters flee unfettered to the south and west through Syrian Army lines, some have gone into hiding near Damascus, the Syrian capital, and in the country’s northwest, awaiting orders sent by insurgent leaders on encrypted communications channels.