SDF combs last IS hideouts

Kurdish-led forces yesterday combed the banks of the Euphrates in eastern Syria to smoke out the last jihadists preventing the much-delayed announcement of the demise of the Islamic State's "caliphate".

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched an assault against the last IS bastion in the village of Baghouz on February 9.

On Tuesday, they cornered diehard fighters into a few acres of farmland by the Euphrates River, after forcing them out of the main encampment where they had been confined.

The six-month-old operation to wipe out the last vestige of IS's once-sprawling proto-state is close to reaching its inevitable outcome, but SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali yesterday said a victory announcement would be premature.

"Our force is still carrying out combing operations and searches" for hidden jihadists, he said.

"As soon as we are done, we will announce the liberation" of Baghouz, the spokesman added.

His comments came one day after US President Donald Trump said the jihadists' self-proclaimed "caliphate" would be "gone as of tonight".

It also came in response to reports earlier yesterday that the IS enclave had completely fallen.

The frontline was quiet yesterday, for the second-day in a row, as the SDF paused its push to allow for more surrenders.

The "caliphate" which IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed in 2014 once covered territory larger than the United Kingdom, straddling Syria and Iraq. It has crumbled under years of military operations in which Syrian and Iraqi forces backed by their international allies clawed back the land but left cities in ruins and populations homeless.