Kurdish forces launch operation on last Islamic State stronghold in Syria

Kurdish-led forces have launched an assault on the last remaining Islamic State (IS) group stronghold in eastern Syria, AFP reported.

Mass grave containing dozens of women found in Syria's Baghouz, says SDF

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The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said it renewed its offensive on the final sliver of IS-controlled territory after helping the remaining civilians to evacuate the area, the news agency reported on Friday.

The SDF, dominated by the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Unit (YPG) militia, has been backed by the United States in the fight against IS.

"The people we evacuated today told us that no civilians were inside and that those still inside did not want to leave," SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali told AFP, referring to the small village of Baghouz on Syria's border with Iraq.

How many IS fighters remain in the enclave is unknown, AFP reported, but Bali on Friday told Reuters he expected "a fierce and heavy battle".

Bali told Reuters that the SDF were advancing on two fronts using medium and heavy weaponry.

IS responded with drones and rockets, and seven SDF fighters have been wounded so far, said commander Adnan Afrin.

When reporters arrived at the village outskirts around midday on Saturday, columns of smoke could be seen rising from inside but the scene appeared calm. Warplanes hovered in the sky, but no air strikes were observed, Reuters reported.

A spokesman for the coalition, which supports the Kurdish-led SDF, said it was too early to assess the battle's progress "as it is a complicated situation with many variables".

The offensive to regain control of the last remaining territories under IS control in eastern Syria began about six months ago.

Still, SDF general commander Mazloum Kobani told journalists on Thursday that he expected a final victory to be declared within a week.

Hours after Kobani made that prediction, US President Donald Trump contradicted him, declaring that forces "just took over 100 percent" of the territory controlled by IS.

Trump's claim was quickly called out as false by journalists in the area, however.

The SDF's offensive in Syria comes after Trump announced in mid-December that he would pull about 2,000 American forces out of the war-torn country, a decision that shocked Washington's allies and prompted then US defence secretary Jim Mattis to resign.

The exact timeline for the withdrawal remains unknown, but recently a senior Trump administration official said about 400 US troops would be left behind, Reuters reported at the time.

The 400 troops will be split between a safe zone being negotiated for northeastern Syria and the US military base at Tanf, near the border with Iraq and Jordan, the official said on 22 February, the news agency reported.

During a security conference in Munich in mid-February, senior US lawmakers and military officials urged Washington's allies to send hundreds of troops into Syria to help secure the region as the US plans its withdrawal. 

Germany's defence minister and other European officials rejected the US call, however, and major uncertainty persists around any possible deployment of foreign armed forces in Syria after the US withdrawal.

The US pullout from Syria has also raised questions in recent weeks over whether Western governments intend to repatriate citizens who left their respective countries to join IS in Syria or Iraq and are now being held in refugee camps in the region.

Fleeing the last IS-held pockets, around 20 children crossed the frontline on their own this week, including Iraqis, Syrians, Turks and Indonesians, said SDF commander Adnan Afrin. The fathers of some were identified as IS fighters and arrested immediately.

Hareth Najem fled Islamic State's last enclave in eastern Syria wounded and alone. The Iraqi orphan's family had died two years earlier in air strikes across the border in al-Qaim region.

"I had two brothers and a sister. They all died, and then I was by myself," Hareth told Reuters, tears filling his eyes. "My little sister, I loved her a lot. I used to take her with me to the market."

Lying in a cattle truck beside another injured boy at a desert transit point for US-backed forces, he huddled under a blanket. His face was covered in dirt and the side of his head wrapped with bandages covering wounds incurred days earlier.

Hareth was 11 years old when IS first took over territories in Iraq and Syria. Now 16, he was among the children swept up this week in the civilian evacuation of Baghouz.

Some of the children are foreigners whose parents brought them to be raised under IS rule, or child fighters conscripted into what the group dubbed "cubs of the caliphate". Others, including members of the Yazidi minority, were enslaved by IS.

Many have seen their parents die in the fighting or be detained by rival forces. As IS faces territorial defeat, their fate remains uncertain. The SDF investigates all men and teenage boys arriving from Baghouz to determine possible IS links.