Battle rages for last ISIL Syria enclave

Falling bombs raised smoke over ISIL's last enclave in east Syria on Sunday, obscuring the huddle of vehicles and makeshift shelters to which the jihadist group's self-declared "caliphate" has been reduced.

Air strikes and artillery began hitting the area and smoke billowed overhead late in the afternoon as U.S.-backed forces resumed their weeks-long attack.

During an earlier lull in fighting, tiny figures of people still inside were clearly visible walking among hundreds of trucks, cars and minibuses clustered around a few concrete buildings by the bank of the Euphrates.

It is all that remains to ISIL in the heartland of the territory it seized in 2014, taking advantage of chaos in Iraq and Syria to grab about a third of both countries and eradicating the border between them.

However, the group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still at large and regional officials believe it will remain a threat after it has lost all its land.

Surrendering families of ISIL militants in the village of Baghouz, March 14, 2019. /VCG Photo

The enclave is in Baghouz, a handful of hamlets in farmland next to the river along the Iraqi border. Despite its tiny size, more than 60,000 people have fled it in the past two months, said the besieging Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia.

Nearly half of them were surrendering ISIL supporters, mostly family members of jihadist fighters, though 5,000 armed militants also gave themselves up, said SDF spokesperson Kino Gabriel.

Another SDF spokesperson, Mustafa Bali, said that only about 100 militants and their families had surrendered overnight in the spot where hardline insurgents have been mounting a desperate last-stand defense.

"We had expected the surrender of a large number of terrorists and their families but only a small group came out," Bali said.

On Friday, suicide blasts targeted some of the people leaving Baghouz and surrendering to the SDF.

(REUTERS)