US-backed Syrian forces bomb last IS stronghold in Baghouz

US-backed Syrian forces ravaged Baghouz, the last stronghold of the Islamic State (IS). The capture of the last pocket still held by IS fighters in Baghouz would mark the end of a devastating four-year global campaign to end the extremist group's hold on territory in Syria and Iraq.

Baghouz: The last stronghold of the Islamic State (IS) in Baghouz was ravaged by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Baghouz has been under siege from US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) since September last year.

Thousands of people have trickled out of the town in recent days, a wave of evacuations that has brought the IS a step closer to defeat.

IS families still with the group have been left in the shanty towns outside Baghouz, where its area of control was considerably reduced to a tiny shred of territory on the banks of the Euphrates River.

Hundreds of suspected Islamic State group militants on Thursday handed themselves over to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

The evacuated civilians have narrated the terrible conditions inside the village, with food scarce and people forced to hide underground to escape airstrikes and shelling by the SDF.

The capture of the last pocket still held by IS fighters in Baghouz would mark the end of a devastating four-year global campaign to end the extremist group's hold on territory in Syria and Iraq — their so-called "caliphate" that at the height of the group's power in 2014 controlled nearly a third of both Iraq and Syria.