BAGHOUZ, Syria (Reuters) - Islamic State’s final enclave in eastern Syria was pounded with air strikes and artillery on Monday in a U.S.-backed assault aimed at wiping out the last shred of its territorial rule that once spanned a third of Syria and Iraq.

Fires raged after dark in the enclave at Baghouz near the Iraqi border as it was targeted with rockets and thick plumes of smoke rose from the area, Reuters TV footage showed. Heavy gunfire could be heard and flares lit up the night sky.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said earlier its fighters were encountering sniper fire and landmines and advancing slowly to avoid losses. The most hardened IS foreign fighters are still holed up in the area, the SDF has said.

Air strikes destroyed IS stores and vehicles, the SDF said.

The defeat of Islamic State at Baghouz will mark a milestone in the campaign against the jihadist group, ending its control of populated territory in the area straddling Iraq and Syria where it suddenly expanded in 2014 and declared a caliphate.

However, the group still operates in remote territory elsewhere and has shown it will continue to mount a potent security threat, with a string of insurgent attacks in both countries.

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A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the United States did not believe senior Islamic State leaders were still in Baghouz.

“We’re pretty confident the leadership is not still down in this tiny little, basically hellhole that remains there,” the official said.

“Most of those folks have moved elsewhere as part of our assessment of their movement toward a more clandestine insurgency or preparing for the next fight when they don’t control territory,” the official added.

SDF commander Adnan Afrin said many jihadist fighters had been killed or wounded since the assault began on Sunday. Reuters could not independently confirm the death toll.

Islamic State fighters attempted four suicide attacks but the SDF captured an arms dump, said Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office. One SDF fighter was killed and four wounded.

The SDF has held off from a full assault for most of the past few weeks as many thousands of people poured from the enclave, including surrendering fighters, Islamic State supporters, other civilians and some of the group’s captives.

Flares are seen in the sky during fighting in the Islamic State's final enclave, in the village of Baghouz, Deir Al Zor province, Syria March 11, 2019. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Sunday evening, no more people had come out, prompting the SDF to start its attack. However on Monday evening a Reuters journalist saw a group of around 100 people, including women and children, coming out of the enclave.

Pro-Syrian government forces hold the opposite bank of the Euphrates across from Baghouz and Iraqi militias are stationed at the border, cutting off any easy escape route for the jihadists.

HARSH CONDITIONS

Inside Baghouz, a squalid area of makeshift shelters, garbage and trenches filmed by Reuters TV on Sunday showed the harsh conditions in the ruins of Islamic State’s ‘caliphate’.

Amid palm trees and scrubby patches of vegetation, rusting cars stood among the bivouacs made by stringing blankets from rope. Oil drums and plastic barrels lay scattered around.

The SDF has shipped most people fleeing the wreckage of Islamic State’s rule over recent weeks to al-Hol in northeast Syria where some 65,000 people now live in a camp that the U.N. says was built to house 20,000.

The obdurate support voiced by many of them for Islamic State, particularly among foreigners, has posed a complex security, legal and moral challenge for both the SDF and their own governments.

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Those issues were underscored on Friday with the death of the newborn son of Shamima Begum, a British woman who left to join Islamic State when she was a schoolgirl.

On Monday, the head of the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said there were about 3,000 children from 43 countries living in al-Hol, along with many more Syrian and Iraqi children, in “extremely dire conditions”.

“Since the 1st of January 2019, every single day, a child has died fleeing the fight against ISIS,” UNICEF head Geert Cappelaere told a news conference in Beirut.</s>The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) resumed their assault against the last ISIL enclave in eastern Syria, aiming to wipe out the last vestige of its self-declared "caliphate" that once spanned one-third of Iraq and Syria.

Explosions and fires illuminated columns of smoke over Baghouz village after the Kurdish-led SDF launched the offensive around 6pm (16:00 GMT) on Sunday. The fighting began anew after a deadline for the group's armed men to surrender expired.

Rustam Hasake, an SDF commander, said several ISIL tunnels were destroyed by the advancing troops.

"We have been able to liberate a number of positions from them. We are currently advancing with the support of the international coalition from the air and on the ground as well," he said.

While Baghouz represents the last shred of populated land held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL or ISIS) fighters, the armed group is still widely seen as a big security threat with remote territory elsewhere and the continued capacity to launch attacks.

The SDF have been poised to advance into the enclave for weeks, but have repeatedly held back to allow for the evacuation of civilians, many of them wives and children of ISIL fighters.

Mustafa Bali, the head of the SDF media office, said on Sunday no further civilians had emerged from the enclave at the Iraqi border since Saturday and the SDF had not observed any more civilians in the area, prompting the decision to attack.

"The military operations have started. Our forces are now clashing with the terrorists and the attack started," he said.

Bali said the SDF had given the ISIL fighters time to surrender, and that time was over.

ISIL surrounded

Tens of thousands of people have streamed out of the shrinking territory held by the ISIL in recent months. Aid agencies in the area are struggling to cope with the influx, according to NGOs, including Save the Children.

Bali said more than 4,000 fighters had surrendered to the SDF in the past month.

Earlier on Sunday, a correspondent of the Reuters news agency saw the SDF advance into a tented area of Baghouz after the ISIL fighters withdrew from it. The SDF fighters gathered some ammunition and rifles left behind by the armed group.

The SDF announced the military operation to capture Baghouz in September, but has held off a full-blown assault after it became apparent that a huge number of civilians were still inside.

Syrian military air raids against the ISIL fighters further west in the country's central desert were a reminder of the constant warnings by both Arab and Western officials that the group will continue to pose a serious security threat.

After its sudden advance across swaths of Syria and Iraq in 2014, the group held about one-third of both countries, but its wholesale slaughter or sexual enslavement of minorities and its grotesque public killings roused global anger.

Separate offensives by different forces in both countries steadily drove it back, inflicting major ISIL defeats in 2017, and eventually forcing it back on Baghouz, a little cluster of hamlets and farmland on the Euphrates.



</s>US-backed Kurdish-led forces have resumed their assault against the final ISIL enclave in eastern Syria, aiming to wipe out the last vestige of its self-declared "caliphate" that once spanned a third of Iraq and Syria.

While Baghouz represents the last shred of populated land held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL, ISIS) fighters, the armed group is still widely seen as a big security threat with remote territory elsewhere and the continued capacity to launch attacks.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been poised to advance into the enclave for weeks, but have repeatedly held back to allow for the evacuation of civilians, many of them wives and children of ISIL fighters.

Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, said on Sunday no further civilians had emerged from the enclave at the Iraqi border since Saturday and the SDF had not observed any more civilians in the area, prompting the decision to attack.

"The military operations have started. Our forces are now clashing with the terrorists and the attack started," he said.

He said they had given ISIL fighters time to surrender, and that time was over.

Reporting from Gaziantep, near the Turkish-Syrian border, Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid said that while the fighting had resumed, it was still unclear if this was the final push.

"Whether this is the final battle or not, it is too early to say.

"That's simply because there has been a pattern over the past few months … [where] there has been fighting, then a very dramatic picture of ISIL women and children coming out of Baghouz in the thousands," said Abdel-Hamid.

"There is a sense that ISIL is surrounded, weaker and on the verge of defeat, but there is also a lot of caution because nobody knows how many fighters are left inside," she added.

Tens of thousands of people have streamed out of the shrinking territory held by ISIL in recent months. Aid agencies in the area are struggling to cope with the influx, according to NGOs, including Save the Children.

Bali said more than 4,000 fighters had surrendered to the SDF in the past month.

Earlier on Sunday, a Reuters news agency correspondent saw SDF forces advance into a tented area of Baghouz after ISIL fighters withdrew from it. SDF fighters gathered some ammunition and rifles left behind by the armed group.

The SDF announced the military operation to capture Baghouz in September, but has held off on a full-blown assault after it became apparent that a huge number of civilians were still inside.

Syrian military air raids against ISIL fighters further west, in the country's central desert, were a reminder of the constant warnings by both Arab and Western officials that the group will continue to pose a serious security threat.

After its sudden advance across swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, the group held about one-third of both countries, but its wholesale slaughter or sexual enslavement of minorities and its grotesque public killings roused global anger.

Separate offensives by different forces in both countries steadily drove it back, inflicting major ISIL defeats in 2017, and eventually forcing it back on Baghouz, a little cluster of hamlets and farmland on the Euphrates.</s>U.S.-backed Syrian forces launched an attack against the final Islamic State enclave in eastern Syria. The assault aims to wipe out the last vestige of self-declared “caliphate” of IS that once spanned a third of Iraq and Syria.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been poised to advance into the enclave for weeks, but has repeatedly held back to allow for the evacuation of civilians, many of them wives and children of IS fighters.

Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office said, no further civilians had emerged from the enclave at the Iraqi border since Saturday. He said SDF had not observed any more civilians in the area, prompting the decision to attack. Bali said more than 4,000 IS militants had surrendered in the last month but the most hardened foreign militants are still holed up inside.

The IS group has been driven from the territory it once held in Syria and Iraq by an array of enemies, including forces backed by Russia, Iran and Turkey in addition to the United States. It suffered its major military defeats in 2017 with the loss of the Syrian city of Raqqa and Iraq’s Mosul.</s>The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched an assault on Sunday against the final Islamic State enclave in eastern Syria, aiming to wipe out the last vestige of its self-declared “caliphate” that once spanned a third of Iraq and Syria.</s>DEIR AL-ZOR PROVINCE, Syria (Reuters) - The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Sunday that their frontline troops had received orders to attack the final Islamic State enclave in eastern Syria, and the assault could begin at any moment.

The advance on the besieged enclave at Baghouz, near the Iraqi border, has stalled repeatedly to allow for the evacuation of civilians.

Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, said no more civilians had come out of the enclave since Saturday, and SDF forces had not observed any more civilians in the area.

“Frontline forces have received orders to move”, he said. “This evening, we expect movement at any moment.”

Thousands of people - many of them the wives of Islamic State fighters and their children - have been streaming out of the enclave over the last few weeks.

Bali said more than 4,000 militants had surrendered to the SDF in the past month and tens of thousands of civilians had been evacuated.

“Our forces are ready now to start and finish what is left in ISIS hands,” Bali said in a separate comment on Twitter.</s>BAGHOUZ, Syria (Reuters) - U.S.-backed Syrian forces launched an assault against the final Islamic State enclave in eastern Syria on Sunday, aiming to wipe out the last vestige of its self-declared “caliphate” that once spanned a third of Iraq and Syria.

While the Baghouz enclave represents the last shred of populated land held by the jihadists, the group is still widely seen as a big security threat operating in remote territory elsewhere and able to launch guerrilla attacks.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has been poised to advance into the enclave for weeks, but has repeatedly held back to allow for the evacuation of civilians, many of them wives and children of Islamic State fighters.

Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, said no further civilians had emerged from the enclave at the Iraqi border since Saturday and the SDF had not observed any more civilians in the area, prompting the decision to attack.

“The military operations have started. Our forces are now clashing with the terrorists and the attack started,” he told Reuters.

Bali said more than 4,000 IS militants had surrendered in the last month, among the tens of thousands of people who have streamed out of Baghouz - a collection of hamlets surrounded by farmland on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River.

But the SDF has also said the most hardened foreign jihadists are still holed up inside, ready to fight to the end.

In a post on Twitter, Bali said the attack had started at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT). Air strikes had targeted Islamic State weapons stores. “Direct and fierce” clashes were underway, he added.

Islamic State has been driven from the territory it once held in Syria and Iraq by an array of enemies, including forces backed by Russia, Iran and Turkey in addition to the United States.

It suffered its major military defeats in 2017 with the loss of the Syrian city of Raqqa and Iraq’s Mosul.

A former IS fighter who surrendered to the SDF two months ago told Reuters in an interview on Saturday that the group had sent hundreds of men out of its diminishing territory to establish sleeper cells.

The SDF, spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG militia, has been the main U.S. partner in Syria and has steadily driven the group down the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, forcing its fighters and followers to fall back to Baghouz.

Earlier on Sunday, a Reuters journalist in SDF-held ground observed Islamic State fighters moving around in the part of Baghouz still under their control.

SDF fighters advanced into a makeshift tented settlement abandoned by the group, finding a number of rifles and ammunition left behind.</s>BAGHOUZ, Syria (Reuters) - The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched an assault on Sunday against the final Islamic State enclave in eastern Syria, aiming to wipe out the last vestige of its self-declared “caliphate” that once spanned a third of Iraq and Syria.

While the Baghouz enclave represents the last shred of populated land held by the jihadists, the group is still widely seen as a big security threat with remote territory elsewhere and the continued capacity to launch guerrilla attacks.

The SDF, spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG militia, has been poised to advance into the enclave for weeks, but has repeatedly held back to allow for the evacuation of civilians, many of them wives and children of Islamic State fighters.

Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, said no further civilians had emerged from the enclave at the Iraqi border since Saturday and the SDF had not observed any more civilians in the area, prompting the decision to attack.

“The military operations have started. Our forces are now clashing with the terrorists and the attack started,” he said.

Tens of thousands of people have streamed out of the shrinking territory held by Islamic State over the last months.

Bali said more than 4,000 militants had surrendered to the SDF in the past month.

Earlier on Sunday, a Reuters correspondent saw SDF forces advance into a tented area of Baghouz after Islamic State fighters withdrew from it. SDF fighters gathered some ammunition and rifles left behind by the jihadists.</s>U.S.-Backed Forces In Syria Close In On ISIS' Last Stronghold

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have launched another assault on the Islamic State group's last enclave in Syria. A major concern is that people are still being held hostage by ISIS.</s>DEIR AL-ZOR PROVINCE, Syria (Reuters) - The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Sunday that their frontline troops had received orders to attack the final Islamic State enclave in eastern Syria, and the assault could begin at any moment.

The advance on the besieged enclave at Baghouz, near the Iraqi border, has stalled repeatedly to allow for the evacuation of civilians.

Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, said no more civilians had come out of the enclave since Saturday, and SDF forces had not observed any more civilians in the area.

"Frontline forces have received orders to move", he said. "This evening, we expect movement at any moment."

Thousands of people - many of them the wives of Islamic State fighters and their children - have been streaming out of the enclave over the last few weeks.

Bali said more than 4,000 militants had surrendered to the SDF in the past month and tens of thousands of civilians had been evacuated.

"Our forces are ready now to start and finish what is left in ISIS hands," Bali said in a separate comment on Twitter.

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US-backed Syrian forces resume their offensive on the final enclave controlled by ISIL in Syria at Baghuz.