BAGHOUZ: A fully veiled woman carrying her injured child just after leaving the IS group's last holdout of Baghouz on Tuesday — AFP DAMASCUS, Mar 05 (Agencies): Thousands of people, including armed fighters, have left the last area held by ISIL in Syria, a spokesperson for the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said.
Mostafa Bali of the SDF tweeted that about 3,000 people had come out of the village of Baghouz in eastern Syria on Monday through a humanitarian corridor established by the Kurdish-led group for those who want to leave or surrender.
Bali said among those who left was a large number of fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) group who "surrendered to our forces".
The evacuations came as the US-backed forces slowed down their latest push on Baghouz, the last shred of ISIL-held territory, to allow civilians to leave the tiny enclave.
It is unclear how many ISIL fighters and civilians remain inside, but the number is likely in the hundreds, according to local activists.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people, including Islamic State fighters, evacuated the extremist group's last foothold in eastern Syria on Monday, after US-backed Syrian fighters again slowed their offensive to allow a way out of the tiny enclave.
The new exodus came only three days after the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces resumed military operations against the militants holed up in Baghouz, a village on the banks of the Euphrates River close to the Iraqi border.
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