Civilians evacuated from last Islamic State holdout in Syria

20 February 2019, 3:18 pm

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A convoy of trucks carrying hundreds of civilians — men, women and children — is leaving the last enclave held by Islamic State militants in eastern Syria this afternoon, signaling a possible end to a standoff that has lasted for more than a week.

An Associated Press team in Baghouz, a village near the Iraqi border where the Islamic State group is making its final stand, counts at least 17 trucks emerging through a humanitarian corridor used in past weeks to evacuate people from the jihadists’ last patch of territory along the Euphrates River.

Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, the US-backed militia spearheading the fight against IS in Syria, confirms the trucks were carrying civilians out of the enclave.

— AP