Civilians set to leave last ISIS territory, clearing way for coalition attacks

The last civilians are expected to be evacuated from ISIS’s final enclave in eastern Syria on Thursday, clearing the way for US-backed forces to attack extremists still holed up inside, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said.

The village of Baghouz at the Iraqi border is the last scrap of territory left to ISIS in the Euphrates valley region that became its final stronghold in Iraq and Syria after a series of defeats in 2017.

Taking it will nudge the eight-year-old Syrian war toward a new phase, with US President Donald Trump’s pledge to withdraw troops leaving a security vacuum that other powers could seek to fill.

The head of the SDF media office, Mustafa Bali, told Reuters the SDF would attack once the civilian evacuation of Baghouz was complete - a process he expected to be finished on Thursday.

Baghouz, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, is completely surrounded by the SDF. Bali did not say how much more time was needed to finish off the remaining ISIS militants, or give a fresh estimate of how many fighters remained.

The SDF has previously estimated several hundred fighters - believed mostly to be foreign extremists - are still inside. The US-led coalition said on Wednesday “the most hardened” extremists remain in Baghouz.

More than 2,000 civilians left the enclave on Wednesday, the SDF said. It has said more than 20,000 civilians left Baghouz in the days leading up to the start of the SDF’s final push to capture the enclave this month.