BAGHOUZ: US-backed forces said on Sunday thousands of people were believed to still be inside the last enclave of the militant Islamic State group in eastern Syria, as they sought to flush out die-hard fighters with air strikes and shelling.

Tens of thousands of dishevelled women, children and men have streamed out of a small pocket in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border in recent weeks — and they still keep coming.

The huge numbers have flummoxed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and slowed down their offensive aimed at dealing a knock-out blow to the jihadists’ once-sprawling proto-state.

At an SDF outpost inside Baghouz on Sunday, a correspondent saw white smoke rising above the IS enclave as the sound of air strikes and shelling rang out. A large blaze ravaged the makeshift encampment where holdout IS fighters are making a last stand.

The Kurdish-led force, backed by US-led coalition warplanes, has rained fire on the jihadists for a week, blitzing thousands of fighters and family members into surrender.

But SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel told a news conference on Sunday that according to the latest group that quit the pocket, “an estimated 5,000 people” are still holed up inside.

He cautioned, however, that the SDF has not been able to verify that figure.

Those fleeing the pocket have previously reported widely inconsistent figures on the number of people still inside, ranging from thousands to a few hundred.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2019