Kurdish-led forces in eastern Syria prepared Friday for a push on the last remaining speck of the Islamic State group’s “caliphate” where diehard jihadists and their families are holed up.
US President Donald Trump predicted that the once-sprawling proto-state’s official death could be proclaimed as early as next week but operations have been paused for days on the main front line.
Four years ago, IS controlled territory the size of Britain and administered millions of people, but the US coalition fighting the group said 99.5 percent of it has been clawed back in successive offensives.
Its deputy commander, Major General Christopher Ghika, described the size of the last IS pocket as “now less than one percent of the original caliphate.”
The coalition has been training and providing air support to the Syrian Democratic Forces, which launched an offensive on the last pocket of jihadist territory in September 2018.
Two months later, they took Hajin, which was the last town of note under IS control and left the jihadists fighting over a few scattered hamlets in the Euphrates Valley.
Thousands of suspected IS fighters have attempted to blend in with civilians fleeing the jihadists’ last bastion, including a large number of foreigners.
“They are attempting to escape through intermixing with the innocent women and children attempting to flee the fighting,” Ghika said on Thursday.