ISIL militants surrender in its last enclave but more remain

Some 200 ISIL fighters surrendered after a fierce battle over their last pocket of territory in eastern Syria, but around 1,000 may still be holding out, said a spokesman for the U.S.-backed Syrian force battling them on Monday.

The militant group faces defeat in Baghouz on the banks of the Euphrates, but it still holds remote pockets of land further west and has launched guerrilla attacks in other areas where it has lost control.

Baghouz, a collection of hamlets and farmland near the border with Iraq, is the last patch of populated territory ISIL still holds in the area straddling the two countries where it declared a caliphate in 2014.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said earlier on Monday they had slowed their assault because more civilians, previously thought to have completely evacuated, were trapped in the enclave, but they vowed to capture it soon.

A member of the Syrian Democratic Forces stands guard in Baghouz, March 2, 2019. /VCG Photo

A convoy of trucks was seen heading into Baghouz in the morning, and some 200 militants had left in a group of about 3,000 people after the SDF opened a corridor for them to flee, said Mostafa Bali, head of the SDF media office.

"Before the clashes began, we thought there were 1,000-1,500 terrorists. In the past three days, of course, the terrorists endured casualties and today about 200 terrorists surrendered, so we think the number of terrorists could be around 1,000 give or take, in addition to civilians stuck inside," Bali said.

ISIL has gradually fallen back on Baghouz as its fighters retreated down the Euphrates in the face of sustained assault by local and international foes.

Despite the setbacks, the group remains a deadly threat, developing alternatives to its caliphate ranging from rural insurgency to urban bombings by affiliates in the region and beyond, many governments say.