IS defend last Syria redoubt

Jihadist fighters made a desperate last stand in eastern Syria yesterday, while their wives and children fled the final, blood-soaked implosion of their “caliphate”. The Syrian Democratic Forces on Saturday launched a final push to expel IS fighters from the sole remaining morsel of the proto-state they declared in 2014 across Syria and Iraq. Thousands of people have flooded out of the so-called “Baghouz pocket” near the Iraqi border in recent days -- mostly women and children, but also suspected jihadists.

Near a screening point for new arrivals from IS territory on Wednesday, an AFP reporter saw about two dozen coalit i o n forces searching men who had escaped. A line of about five waited to be patted down, including one man in a rickety wheelchair. A coalition force member led one of the younger men to a subsequent point for a retina scan. Further on, those that had been searched were kneeling on the ground with coalition troops circling around them.

Hundreds of people fled the IS holdout in the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said. “We have retaken positions lost in a counterattack launched two days ago by IS. We have progressed and taken new positions,” SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said the US-backed fighters were making painstaking progress. “There are mines throughout the sector,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based war monitor. “The SDF are firing rockets,” he said, and both sides were locked in heavy clashes on the edges of Baghouz village.

The alliance launched a military offensive to expel IS from the eastern banks of the Euphrates in the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor in September. Since then, more than 1,300 SDF fighters and 650 jihadists have been killed, while more than 400 civilians have also lost their lives.