Fierce fighting for last Islamic State foothold in eastern Syria

Syrian fighters backed by artillery fire from a US-led coalition battled a fierce jihadist fightback as they push to retake a last morsel of territory from the Islamic State group.

Mushrooming black clouds are rising over the embattled jihadist holdout in eastern Syria, as missiles and a warplane streak through the sky.

More than four years after the extremists declared a “caliphate” across large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq, several offensives have whittled that proto-state down to a tiny holdout.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Saturday announced the final push to expel hundreds of diehard jihadists from that patch on the Iraq border.

— AFP