Islamic State’s caliphate on brink of defeat in Syria
- IS is besieged in a neighbourhood that is estimated to be 700 metres long and 700 metres wide in the village of Baghouz
Jihadist fighters defending the last dreg of the Islamic State group’s “caliphate” on Saturday were holed up in half a square kilometre in a village of eastern Syria.
US President Donald Trump said the fall of the IS proto-state would be announced on Saturday, but a top Syrian commander said his forces had slowed down their advance to protect civilians.
The jihadists declared a “caliphate” in large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, but have since lost all of it but the tiny patch in eastern Syria near the border with Iraq.
“IS is besieged in a neighbourhood that is estimated to be 700 metres long and 700 metres wide” in the village of Baghouz, said Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander Jia Furat.
“Baghouz is within our firing range but we are moving cautiously considering there are civilians still trapped there as human shields,” said Furat, the overall commander for the operation.
“In a very short time, not longer than a few days, we will officially announce the end of IS’s existence,” he told reporters at the Al-Omar oilfield turned SDF base.