A United States-backed Syrian militia on Tuesday announced it had captured a camp from the Islamic State terror group in eastern Syria, leaving the organization's remaining territory in the war-torn country further weakened.

Last week, the Syrian Democratic Forces, an ethnically-mixed militia led by Kurds, resumed their final offensive to liberate the village of Baghuz after evacuating thousands of civilians. </s> The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces say they have captured a camp from Islamic State in eastern Syria, as the extremist group's sliver of remaining territory in the war-ravaged country wanes further.

"The SDF is in control of Daesh encampment area in Baghuz," SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali wrote on Twitter.

"This is not a victory announcement but a significant progress in the fight against Daesh," he wrote, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Late on Tuesday around 12 Islamic State suicide bombers blew themselves up after they refused to surrender, SDF commander Adnan Afrin said.

He added that several Islamic State fighters also surrendered to SDF fighters who were combing the area they took earlier.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that around 1,000 jihadists handed themselves over the SDF, some of them sick and wounded.

The SDF said the Islamic State fighters are now confined to a tiny pocket on the edges of the Euphrates river and are holding their families as human shields.

Last week, the SDF, a Kurdish-led rebel group, resumed a campaign supported by the US-led air coalition with the aim of capturing the village of Baghuz after evacuating thousands of civilians.

The Kurdish spokesman stressed in comments to dpa that battles are "fierce ... on some fronts there are tit-for-tat attacks, on other fronts there are some advances."

Baghuz, located on the Euphrates River in eastern Syria near the border with Iraq, is the last significant territory still in the hands of Islamic State, which for years controlled swathes of both countries.

Kurdish sources have said that the presence of hundreds of mines in the area is slowing their advances in the village. </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> US-backed forces in Syria have announced the liberation of the last area held by Islamic State in the eastern Syrian village of Baghuz, declaring victory over the extremist group and the end of its self-declared Islamic caliphate.

“Baghuz is free and the military victory against Daesh has been achieved,” tweeted Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, referring to the group by its Arabic acronym.

Elimination of the last Isis stronghold in Baghuz marks the end of the militants’ self-declared caliphate, which at its height blanketed large parts of Syria and Iraq. The campaign to take back the territory by the US and its partners has spanned five years and two US presidencies, unleashed more than 100,000 bombs and killed untold numbers of fighters and civilians.

But the weekend announcement, in a tweet, was anti-climactic, and on the ground sporadic gunfire continued. A day earlier President Donald Trump had declared Islamic State militants no longer controlled any territory in Syria.

Associated Press journalists in Baghuz on Saturday reported hearing mortars and gunfire directed toward a cliff overlooking Baghuz, where US-led coalition airstrikes were carried out a day earlier. SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel said on Friday that there were still Isis fighters hiding in caves near Baghuz and clearing operations were still under way.

At its height the Islamic State group ruled a third of both Syria and Iraq, holding millions of people hostage to its harsh and violent interpretation of Islamic law. The group carried out large-scale massacres and documented them with videos circulated online. During a rampage through Iraq’s Sinjar region in 2014 it captured thousands of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority and forced them into sexual slavery. Many are still missing.

The group also used its caliphate as a launchpad for attacks around the globe, including the assaults in Paris in 2015 that killed more than 130 people.

While it imposed an unforgiving version of Islamic law through public beheadings and crucifixions, the group also attempted the mundane duties of governance in its territories, including regulating prices at markets and building infrastructure.

Isis no longer controls any territory in Syria or Iraq but continues to carry out insurgent attacks in both countries. It maintains affiliates in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Afghanistan and elsewhere. </s> Western-backed forces said on Saturday morning that in a “very short time” they would announce the defeat of Isil.

Jiya Furat, a commander with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said that they had cornered the remaining Islamic State militants in one tiny neighbourhood of Baghouz village in eastern Deir Ezzor province, under its fire from all sides.

"Very soon bring good news to the whole world," he said in an apparent reference to an announcement about the defeat of the extremists in Syria.

There are thought to be just a few hundred Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) fighters left, most of whom foreign.

Hundreds of civilians have poured out of Baghouz in recent days but a number are thought to still be left, which is slowing down the SDF. </s> The Latest: IS suspects in killing of 4 Americans captured

BAGHOUZ, Syria (AP) — The Latest on developments in Syria (all times local):

A spokesman for U.S.-backed forces fighting the Islamic State group in Syria says they have captured a group of suspects involved in a January bombing that killed four Americans in a town in northern Syria.

Mustafa Bali says the suspects were captured following technical surveillance by the group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. He did not elaborate on the number of suspects or when they were captured.

The Americans were killed in a suicide bombing in January in the town of Manbij that was claimed by IS.

In a statement posted on Twitter on Tuesday, he said the outcome of the ongoing investigation will be shared at a later time.

Bali's statement came few hours after the SDF said it had captured an IS encampment in the eastern village of Baghouz after IS militants surrendered.

A spokesman for U.S.-backed forces fighting the Islamic State group in Syria says his fighters are in control of an encampment in the village of Baghouz where IS militants have been besieged for months.

Mustafa Bali, of the Kurdish-led force known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, says clashes however are continuing elsewhere in the village in eastern Syria as IS militants continue to fight back.

Bali says on Twitter on Tuesday that controlling the encampment in Baghouz marks "significant progress" in the fight but that it's "not a victory announcement."

The area held by IS in Baghouz is the last pocket of territory in Syria controlled by the extremist group, which once held a vast area of Syria and Iraq, calling it an Islamic "caliphate." </s> BAGHOUZ, Syria — U.S.-backed Syrian forces on Tuesday seized control of an encampment held by the Islamic State group in eastern Syria, after hundreds of militants surrendered overnight, a spokesman said, signaling the group’s collapse after months of stiff resistance. A group of suspects involved in a January bombing that killed four Americans in northern Syria were among militants captured by the Kurdish-led forces.

The taking of the IS camp was a major advance but not the final defeat of the group in Baghouz, the last village held by the extremists where they have been holding out for weeks under siege, according to Mustafa Bali, the spokesman for the Kurdish-led force known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. Still, fighters from the force were starting to celebrate anyway.

“I’m happy it’s over. Now I know my people are safe,” said a fighter who identified himself as Walid Raqqawi who fought in the camp Monday night. He said he is returning to his hometown of Raqqa to rest. Comrades from his unit sang and danced in celebration at an outpost in Baghouz, all saying they were looking forward to going home.

An unknown number of IS militants still clung to a tiny sliver of land trapped between the Euphrates River and the encampment now held by the SDF, officials in the force said.

The militants have been putting up a desperate fight, their notorious propaganda machine working even on the brink of collapse. On Monday, IS issued a video showing its militants furiously defending the encampment, a junkyard of wrecked cards, motorcycles and tents. In the footage, they shoot nonstop with AK-47s and M-16s from behind trucks, vehicles and sand berms.

A group of children could be seen at one point amid the fighting.

“My Muslim brothers everywhere, we did our best, the rest is up to God,” a fighter says as black smoke rises from behind him.

The complete fall of Baghouz would mark the end of the Islamic State group’s self-declared territorial “caliphate,” which at its height stretched across much of Syria and Iraq. For the past four years, U.S.-led forces have waged a destructive campaign to tear down the “caliphate.” But even after Baghouz’s fall, IS maintains a scattered presence and sleeper cells that threaten a continuing insurgency.

The battle for Baghouz has dragged on for weeks — and the encampment has proven a major battleground, with tents covering foxholes and underground tunnels.

The siege has also been slowed by the unexpectedly large number of civilians in Baghouz, most of them families of IS members. Over past weeks they have been flowing out, exhausted, hungry and often wounded. The sheer number who emerged — nearly 30,000 since early January according to Kurdish officials — took the Kurdish-led SDF by surprise.

In the last two weeks, many IS militants appeared to be among those evacuating. But SDF commanders have stopped speculating when the battle may finally be over. Commanders say they don’t know how many more may still be left, hiding in tunnels beneath the war-scarred village.

In the seizure Tuesday of the encampment, hundreds of wounded and sick militants were captured and have been evacuated to nearby military hospitals for treatment, Bali, the SDF spokesman, said in a Twitter post. Still, he cautioned, “this is not a victory announcement, but a significant progress in the fight.”

There were conflicting reports from SDF commanders on the ground about the extent of the IS surrender.

Commander Rustam Hasake told The Associated Press that SDF forces advanced on four fronts Monday night and were inside the camp when the last IS fighters surrendered at dawn. He said the last fighters were pushed out of the camp and were now in an open patch of land by the Euphrates River and were being processed and detained.

Another commander, however, said some IS militants continue to hold a tiny area in an open patch of land in the village, outside the encampment.

AP journalists in Baghouz reported sporadic gunfire echoing in Baghouz and jets circling overhead. At a command post in Baghouz, a Humvee pulled up and unloaded weapons captured from IS on Tuesday, including sniper and hunting rifles, pump action shot guns and grenades and ammunition.

Five trucks hauling 10 trailers full of people were seen coming out of Baghouz. A child could be heard wailing from inside one of them. At least 100 people, nearly all of them children, have died in the truck trips from Baghouz on the way to a camp in northern Syria, or soon after reaching it, according to the International Rescue Committee — a sign of how miserable conditions were inside Baghouz during the siege as supplies ran out.

Bali, in a separate Twitter post Tuesday, said the SDF captured a group of suspects involved in a January suicide bombing that killed four Americans in the northern town of Manbij. He did not elaborate on the number of suspects or whether they were among the most recent militants to surrender.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the blast outside a popular restaurant in Manbij, which killed at least 16 people, including two U.S. service members and two American civilians. It was the deadliest assault on U.S. troops in Syria since American forces went into the country in 2015.

As they make their final stand, the IS militants have issued a string of statements this month claiming to have inflicted heavy losses on the SDF.

In an audio posted online Monday, the IS spokesman, Abu Hassan al-Muhajer, issued his first message in six months, calling for revenge attacks by Muslims in Western countries in retaliation for the shooting attack on two New Zealand mosques that killed 50 people.

He also ridiculed U.S. declarations of the defeat of the Islamic State group, calling the claim of victory a “hallucination.”

But SDF fighters celebrated as if the final collapse were imminent. At the SDF outpost in Baghouz, a commander danced with his soldiers. Fighters said remaining IS militants didn’t put up much resistance.

“We fired on them with our rifles and heavy weapons and they didn’t shoot back. So we walked into the camp and they didn’t shoot at us,” said Orhan Hamad, from the northern province of Hassakeh.

“I tell the martyrs, it wasn’t for nothing. With God’s permission, we’ve finished Daesh.”

Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef in Cairo and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed reporting. </s> BAGHOUZ, Syria — U.S.-backed Syrian forces on Tuesday seized control of an encampment held by the Islamic State group in eastern Syria, after hundreds of militants surrendered overnight, a spokesman said, signaling the group’s collapse after months of stiff resistance. A group of suspects involved in a January bombing that killed four Americans in northern Syria were among militants captured by the Kurdish-led forces.

The taking of the ISIS camp was a major advance but not the final defeat of the group in Baghouz, the last village held by the extremists where they have been holding out for weeks under siege, according to Mustafa Bali, the spokesman for the Kurdish-led force known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. Still, fighters from the force were starting to celebrate anyway.

"I'm happy it's over. Now I know my people are safe," said a fighter who identified himself as Walid Raqqawi who fought in the camp Monday night. He said he is returning to his hometown of Raqqa to rest. Comrades from his unit sang and danced in celebration at an outpost in Baghouz, all saying they were looking forward to going home.

The militants have been putting up a desperate fight, their notorious propaganda machine working even on the brink of collapse. On Monday, ISIS issued a video showing its militants furiously defending the encampment, a junkyard of wrecked cards, motorcycles and tents. In the footage, they shoot nonstop with AK-47s and M-16s from behind trucks, vehicles and sand berms.

The complete fall of Baghouz would mark the end of the Islamic State group’s self-declared territorial “caliphate,” which at its height stretched across much of Syria and Iraq. For the past four years, U.S.-led forces have waged a destructive campaign to tear down the “caliphate.” But even after Baghouz’s fall, ISIS maintains a scattered presence and sleeper cells that threaten a continuing insurgency.

The siege has also been slowed by the unexpectedly large number of civilians in Baghouz, most of them families of ISIS members. Over past weeks they have been flowing out, exhausted, hungry and often wounded. The sheer number who emerged — nearly 30,000 since early January according to Kurdish officials — took the Kurdish-led SDF by surprise.

In the last two weeks, many ISIS militants appeared to be among those evacuating. But SDF commanders have stopped speculating when the battle may finally be over. Commanders say they don’t know how many more may still be left, hiding in tunnels beneath the war-scarred village.

In the seizure Tuesday of the encampment, hundreds of wounded and sick militants were captured and have been evacuated to nearby military hospitals for treatment, Bali, the SDF spokesman, said in a Twitter post. Still, he cautioned, "this is not a victory announcement, but a significant progress in the fight."

Commander Rustam Hasake told The Associated Press that SDF forces advanced on four fronts Monday night and were inside the camp when the last ISIS fighters surrendered at dawn. He said the last fighters were pushed out of the camp and were now in an open patch of land by the Euphrates River and were being processed and detained.

Five trucks hauling 10 trailers full of people were seen coming out of Baghouz. A child could be heard wailing from inside one of them. At least 100 people, nearly all of them children, have died in the truck trips from Baghouz on the way to a camp in northern Syria, or soon after reaching it, according to the International Rescue Committee — a sign of how miserable conditions were inside Baghouz during the siege as supplies ran out.

Bali, in a separate Twitter post Tuesday, said the SDF captured a group of suspects involved in a January suicide bombing that killed four Americans in the northern town of Manbij. He did not elaborate on the number of suspects or whether they were among the most recent militants to surrender.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the blast outside a popular restaurant in Manbij, which killed at least 16 people, including two U.S. service members and two American civilians. It was the deadliest assault on U.S. troops in Syria since American forces went into the country in 2015.

"We fired on them with our rifles and heavy weapons and they didn't shoot back. So we walked into the camp and they didn't shoot at us," said Orhan Hamad, from the northern province of Hassakeh. </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.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have taken control of Al-Baghuz Fawqani, following the surrender of the last remaining ISIL militants in the town.