Iraq News

Evacuations from Syria ISIS holdout continue before onslaught

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) extracted hundreds more people from the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) group's last sliver of territory in Syria and prepared Friday (March 1st) for a final assault against the extremists hunkered down for a desperate last stand, AFP reported.

Diehard fighters from ISIS and their families remained holed up in a last pocket, after the SDF evacuated several hundred people late Thursday from al-Baghouz.

"Many foreigners from various nationalities were among them," SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali said without specifying which ones.

Up to several thousand people are thought to remain in a makeshift camp on the edge of al-Baghouz.

Earlier on Thursday, another SDF spokesman, Adnan Afrin, said his force was waiting to complete evacuations from al-Baghouz before launching a final push to defeat the extremists.

"We want the evacuation operations to finish as soon as possible so we can move to the next phase: an assault or the surrender" of the extremists still inside, Afrin said.

Mazloum Kobani, the general commander of the SDF, also said the epilogue of the operation against ISIS's Euphrates Valley heartland, launched in September last year, could drag on another week.

"In around one week, we will declare complete victory over ISIS," he said.

Kobani was speaking in a video released by the SDF's media office on Thursday of his visit to SDF fighters who were released after being held hostage for three weeks by ISIS.

The commander said that their safe release and that of other SDF force members apparently still held was a factor in slowing down operations against al-Baghouz.

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