Abu Awad, a stalwart fighter for Islamic State, was unsettled. His battered men, sheltering in the rubble of bombed-out buildings, were running low on supplies and they were losing patience – and discipline.

“Abu Osama,” he said on a radio frequency that his pursuers were monitoring two streets away, from the other side of the frontline of the battle for Raqqa. “We don’t have water for ablutions, and we don’t have enough medicine to treat our injured.”

“Cleanse yourself with dirt and I will get some to you in the morning,” a man replied in a tired voice.

A young Kurdish rebel was listening on a handheld radio and recognised the voice. “He’s Syrian,” he said, as others from his unit crouched around in the courtyard of a commandeered home. “That’s their leader, Abu Osama. One time [Isis] told us [on the same frequency]: ‘We will burn you, then bury you.’ There was no point replying.”

Around 300 Isis fighters are all that are thought to be left in the city, clinging to a corner of the capital of their so-called caliphate, which five months of relentless battle has reduced to three annihilated neighbourhoods. The Old City mud wall that had stood for more than a millennium flanks one side of the battleground, and a wasteland that was once an industrial area is on the other. Smoke from burning buildings mixed with raised grey dust from airstrikes shrouds both under an already dull autumn sky.(Theguardian)…[+]