US-backed forces evacuated over 40 truckloads of people from the Islamic State group’s last Syria redoubt on Monday, as they sought to clear out civilians before a final push to crush the jihadists.
The Syrian Democratic Forces has slowed down its offensive on the final pocket due to the presence of civilians, with just a scrap of the IS “caliphate” remaining from a territory that once spanned Syria and Iraq.
An AFP correspondent saw at least 46 trucks crammed with men, women and children approaching an SDF outpost, 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the jihadist bastion.
This picture taken on February 22, 2019 shows a convoy of trucks transporting people who fled the Islamic State (IS) group’s last holdout of Baghouz in Syria’s northern Deir Ezzor province. (Bulent KILIC / AFP)
One vehicle was packed with women clad in black and men who covered their faces. Wounded people were also among the latest evacuees.
Holdout IS fighters and civilians, mostly relatives of jihadists, are trapped inside less than half a square kilometer in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.
— AFP
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