Kurd-led forces overrun last Islamic State-held village in Syria

Kurdish-led fighters overrun the last village held by the Islamic State group in Syria, confining its once vast cross-border “caliphate” to two small hamlets, according to a war monitor.

It is the culmination of a broad offensive launched by the Syrian Democratic Forces last September with US-led coalition support in which they have reduced the jihadists’ last enclave on the north bank of the Euphrates valley near the Iraqi border to a tiny rump.

The capture of the village of Baghouz leaves the few remaining diehard IS fighters holed up in scattered farmhouses among the irrigated fields and orchards on the north bank of the Euphrates River.

— AFP