Clambering up dirt berms, clutching babies and blankets, the latest refugees of the Islamic State could well be the last.

Inside the nearby enclave they fled are perhaps no more than 500 people – nearly all of them fighters who are refusing to leave a two square kilometre corner of eastern Syria that is all that remains of the group’s so-called caliphate.

US-backed Syrian forces launch attack on final Isis stronghold Read more

The women and children who escaped the eastern Syrian town of Baghuz on Tuesday were not supposed to be there. Weeks of bombing and an exodus that had largely accounted for the pre-war population of 9,000 had given the besieging Kurdish-led forces a clear run at the holdouts in the ruins – or so they thought.

After three days of intensive bombardment, more people emerged than the attackers had thought possible, slowly making their way to collection points adjoining the battlefield. They included women from France, Russia and Tajikistan, as well as families from Iraq and nearby Syrian towns and cities.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Women and children arriving at a collection point for Isis families fleeing the battleground of Baghuz in eastern Syria. Photograph: Achilleas Zavallis/The Guardian

As the utopian promise of Isis has become a bloody, shrinking dystopia, Baghuz has been a collection point for fighters and their families from across the lands the group once controlled.

“There are more women and children of Isis left inside than we expected before starting the operation on Saturday,” said Adnan Afrini, a commander from the Kurdish unit, known as the SDF. “We are receiving hundreds of Isis families and their children every day.”

Crammed into a forsaken enclave on the banks of the Euphrates river, the remnants of Isis and their supporters have nowhere to run. And those that have not left by now are unlikely to do so in the coming week, in which Kurdish forces expect Baghuz to be cleared of the extremists.

“We are facing severe fighting because the area that we are surrounding is very small,” said Afrini. “It is very dense with fighters, and they are among their most extreme and experienced soldiers. They use suicide bombers in their counterattacks and tunnels. There is no sign of surrender. The fighters left inside are the most extremist and ideologically driven militants.”

Hamada Hussein, 50, from Qaim, was one of the new exiles. On a field littered with food rations and water bottles, she said she had walked for four hours to safety, and would now accept whatever fate had in store for her. “There is nothing left inside Baghuz,” she said. “We could only eat once a day. There are some women and children left inside who can’t get out because of clashes. The town is all destroyed, and bullets are flying through the sky like rain.”

Like many others standing in the field, Hussein said she was from outside the town, but had fled to Baghuz as war waged all around her.

Abu Ahmad al Rawi, 35, from Rawa, in Iraq was another. “We didn’t have any chance of getting out until now,” he said. “We were in Keshma before moving to Baghuz, and the war got here too.

“I moved to Syria after the advance of the Shia militias to Rawa. I didn’t have any other choice. I don’t know what will happen after this but I knew that was the only way to stay alive.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest As Isis families flee their former stronghold, Kurdish forces say they have taken in over 1,000 people in two days. Photograph: Achilleas Zavallis/Achilleas Zavallis for The Guardian

Salih Omar, a member of a local civic council, said more than 1,000 Isis family members had been received by Kurdish forces in the past two days and would be taken to nearby refugee camps. They are thought to include more foreigners than Iraqis, adding to some 10,000 non-Syrians being sheltered by local authorities in the Kurdish north.

Four days into the final stages of a fight widely billed as the last conventional battle in the four-and-a-half year war against Isis, there is little sign of a deal to allow the remaining diehards to flee to the deserts – their only possible escape route. Such an arrangement brought the fight for the city of Raqqa to a close in late 2017, with fighters and their families bussed to the central Syrian deserts, from where many disappeared.

“It was an SDF initiative and a Faustian pact,” said Shiraz Maher, director of the the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London. “They said to Isis, we’re surrounding you. We’re going to kill you all. Isis appreciate the value of a strategic retreat. It suited both sides for that deal at the time. It gave them a headline victory, and Isis the way to fight another day.”

Now, with the endgame looming, there are no signs that a similar deal will be offered in Baghuz.

Isis is known to hold foreign hostages in or near Baghuz – including the British hostage John Cantlie – whom it plans to use as bargaining chips.

As the war winds down, recovering the hostages is a high priority for the SDF. So too is marking the victory as soon as possible – the Kurds are already constructing a celebratory stage on one of their main bases.

“I’m confident that within days we’ll celebrate victory and the end of the so-called caliphate,” said Afrini.

• This article was amended on 14 February 2019. “Clamouring” in the introduction was changed to “clambering”. </s> The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) resumed their assault against the last ISIL enclave in eastern Syria, aiming to wipe out the last vestige of its self-declared "caliphate" that once spanned one-third of Iraq and Syria.

Explosions and fires illuminated columns of smoke over Baghouz village after the Kurdish-led SDF launched the offensive around 6pm (16:00 GMT) on Sunday. The fighting began anew after a deadline for the group's armed men to surrender expired.

Rustam Hasake, an SDF commander, said several ISIL tunnels were destroyed by the advancing troops.

"We have been able to liberate a number of positions from them. We are currently advancing with the support of the international coalition from the air and on the ground as well," he said.

While Baghouz represents the last shred of populated land held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL or ISIS) fighters, the armed group is still widely seen as a big security threat with remote territory elsewhere and the continued capacity to launch attacks.

The SDF have been poised to advance into the enclave for weeks, but have repeatedly held back to allow for the evacuation of civilians, many of them wives and children of ISIL fighters.

Mustafa Bali, the head of the SDF media office, said on Sunday 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.

Bali said the SDF had given the ISIL fighters time to surrender, and that time was over.

ISIL surrounded

Tens of thousands of people have streamed out of the shrinking territory held by the ISIL in recent months. Aid agencies in the area are struggling to cope with the influx, according to NGOs, including Save the Children.

Bali said more than 4,000 fighters had surrendered to the SDF in the past month.

Earlier on Sunday, a correspondent of the Reuters news agency saw the SDF advance into a tented area of Baghouz after the ISIL fighters withdrew from it. The SDF fighters gathered some ammunition and rifles left behind by the armed group.

The SDF announced the military operation to capture Baghouz in September, but has held off a full-blown assault after it became apparent that a huge number of civilians were still inside.

Syrian military air raids against the ISIL fighters further west in the country's central desert were a reminder of the constant warnings by both Arab and Western officials that the group will continue to pose a serious security threat.

After its sudden advance across swaths of Syria and Iraq in 2014, the group held about one-third of both countries, but its wholesale slaughter or sexual enslavement of minorities and its grotesque public killings roused global anger.

Separate offensives by different forces in both countries steadily drove it back, inflicting major ISIL defeats in 2017, and eventually forcing it back on Baghouz, a little cluster of hamlets and farmland on the Euphrates. </s> US-backed Kurdish-led forces have resumed their assault against the final ISIL 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 Baghouz represents the last shred of populated land held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL, ISIS) fighters, the armed group is still widely seen as a big security threat with remote territory elsewhere and the continued capacity to launch attacks.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been poised to advance into the enclave for weeks, but have repeatedly held back to allow for the evacuation of civilians, many of them wives and children of ISIL fighters.

Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, said on Sunday 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.

He said they had given ISIL fighters time to surrender, and that time was over.

Reporting from Gaziantep, near the Turkish-Syrian border, Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid said that while the fighting had resumed, it was still unclear if this was the final push.

"Whether this is the final battle or not, it is too early to say.

"That's simply because there has been a pattern over the past few months … [where] there has been fighting, then a very dramatic picture of ISIL women and children coming out of Baghouz in the thousands," said Abdel-Hamid.

"There is a sense that ISIL is surrounded, weaker and on the verge of defeat, but there is also a lot of caution because nobody knows how many fighters are left inside," she added.

Tens of thousands of people have streamed out of the shrinking territory held by ISIL in recent months. Aid agencies in the area are struggling to cope with the influx, according to NGOs, including Save the Children.

Bali said more than 4,000 fighters had surrendered to the SDF in the past month.

Earlier on Sunday, a Reuters news agency correspondent saw SDF forces advance into a tented area of Baghouz after ISIL fighters withdrew from it. SDF fighters gathered some ammunition and rifles left behind by the armed group.

The SDF announced the military operation to capture Baghouz in September, but has held off on a full-blown assault after it became apparent that a huge number of civilians were still inside.

Syrian military air raids against ISIL fighters further west, in the country's central desert, were a reminder of the constant warnings by both Arab and Western officials that the group will continue to pose a serious security threat.

After its sudden advance across swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, the group held about one-third of both countries, but its wholesale slaughter or sexual enslavement of minorities and its grotesque public killings roused global anger.

Separate offensives by different forces in both countries steadily drove it back, inflicting major ISIL defeats in 2017, and eventually forcing it back on Baghouz, a little cluster of hamlets and farmland on the Euphrates. </s> John Cantlie, a British photojournalist abducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in 2012, is believed to be alive more than six years after his capture, according to the UK security minister.

Ben Wallace was quoted by British and American media on Tuesday as saying he believes Cantlie is still being held by the armed group, which is now in retreat after controlling a vast territory in Iraq and Syria.

Wallace, who was last seen in an ISIL propaganda video in Mosul in 2016, did not say whether Cantlie is in Iraq or Syria.

Cantlie was one of about a dozen Westen hostages held by the group over the past six years. Several were killed, and others released after ransoms were paid.

The journalist has fronted a series of ISIL propaganda films but had not appeared in a video since 2016, raising fears that he might have been killed in coalition air raids against ISIL.

On Tuesday, the "Free John Cantlie" campaign said it was "aware of the current news circulating" that he is alive.

"Whilst this is not substantiated at present, we continue to hope and pray that this turns out to be true," the statement read.

In January, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) director, Mustafi Bali, was quoted as saying that Cantlie "is still alive and is moving around" the Syrian province of Deir Az Zor.

Cantlie is believed to be the last Western hostage held by ISIL in Iraq or Syria.

The ISIL group killed journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and aid worker Peter Kassig, who were all US citizens. British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines were also killed.

The masked man responsible for those killings, British national Mohammed Emwazi, was later killed in a US attack on the Syrian city of Raqqa.

Cantlie was first captured by an armed group in Syria in August 2012 but escaped, only to be captured again after another visit to the country in November 2012.

Austin Tice, a freelance journalist and veteran US Marine officer, was also taken in Syria in 2012, but it is unknown which group is holding him. </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> ISIS Camp In Baghouz Is Captured As U.S. Allies Declare Progress In Syria

Enlarge this image toggle caption Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces are now in control of an ISIS encampment in Baghouz after weeks of operations and attacks on the village. But isolated gun battles are continuing in the area, seen as ISIS' last remaining redoubt.

"This is not a victory announcement, but a significant progress in the fight against Daesh," said Mustafa Bali, the head of the SDF press office. In a tweet, he added, "Clashes are continuing as a group of ISIS terrorists who are confined into a tiny area still fight back."

The last holdouts of ISIS have been largely confined to Baghuoz since last month. The Kurdish-led SDF launched a new offensive on March 10 after slowing its push to allow civilians to flee — and to let thousands of ISIS fighters and their families surrender.

In the final push to control Baghouz, the SDF blew up an ammunition storage area and slowly pried positions away from ISIS. On Tuesday, the SDF captured hundreds of sick or injured ISIS militants and sent them to nearby hospitals, Bali said.

"This is the slow unraveling of Baghouz, the last ISIS holdout, whose capture will mark the end of the group's territory, which once spanned hundreds of miles across Iraq and Syria," NPR's Ruth Sherlock reports for our Newscast unit. "More than 60,000 people have poured out of this area in the past two months. Most of them have been ISIS fighters, supporters, and their children, but there have also been ISIS victims – Yazidi children and women who were taken by the group from Iraq and used as slaves."

Sherlock adds, "It's believed more hostages – Yazidis, westerners and others – are still trapped inside."

Enlarge this image toggle caption Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images

Separately, Bali said the SDF had captured 157 people he described as experienced terrorists — including more than 100 foreign nationals who had flocked to join the extremist group in its heyday.

Baghouz sits along the Euphrates River at the Iraqi border in eastern Syria. As of last month, U.S. intelligence officials said they believed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may be hiding out in Iraq.

ISIS, which once produced elaborate propaganda and shocking videos of violence and abuse, has largely fallen silent as it has lost territory and oil-related revenue. But recently, the group's spokesman, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, reacted to the mass shooting at two mosques in New Zealand, calling for the group's followers to take up a religious war.

Muhajir, whose true identity remains unknown, also mocked the U.S. and President Trump — particularly the president's very public claim of victory over ISIS at the end of 2018. And he spoke about Baghdadi in a way that implies the leader is still alive. </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. </s> DEIR AL-ZOR PROVINCE, Syria (Reuters) - The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Sunday that their frontline troops had received orders to attack the final Islamic State enclave in eastern Syria, and the assault could begin at any moment.

The advance on the besieged enclave at Baghouz, near the Iraqi border, has stalled repeatedly to allow for the evacuation of civilians.

Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, said no more civilians had come out of the enclave since Saturday, and SDF forces had not observed any more civilians in the area.

“Frontline forces have received orders to move”, he said. “This evening, we expect movement at any moment.”

Thousands of people - many of them the wives of Islamic State fighters and their children - have been streaming out of the enclave over the last few weeks.

Bali said more than 4,000 militants had surrendered to the SDF in the past month and tens of thousands of civilians had been evacuated.

“Our forces are ready now to start and finish what is left in ISIS hands,” Bali said in a separate comment on Twitter.
Thousands of ISIL fighters and their families flee or surrender to the Syrian Democratic Forces, pushing back ISIL control to a square mile in the last ISIL stronghold of Baghuz. It is expected that ISIL still holds several hostages, including British Journalist John Cantlie.