Hundreds flee US-backed Syria battle for last IS holdout

NEAR BAGHOUZ, SYRIA: US-backed forces pressed the battle to expel diehard jihadists from the last pocket of land under their control in eastern Syria on Tuesday after hundreds fled the holdout overnight.

Outside the “Baghouz pocket”, the plains were littered with empty pistachio-coloured rocket shells, water bottles, clothes left behind, and rotting dog carcasses. The extremist group declared a cross-border “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq in 2014, but various military campaigns have chipped it down to a fragment on the Iraqi border. After a pause of more than a week to allow out civilians, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) declared a last push to retake the pocket from the extremists on Saturday. Aided by the warplanes and artillery of a US-led coalition, the Kurdish-led alliance has pressed into a patch of four square kilometres (one square mile). SDF spokesman Mostefa Bali said heavy clashes were underway on Tuesday, after hundreds fled the battle zone during the night. “A group of 600 civilians escaped from Baghouz at one in the morning and they are being searched now,” he said.