Syrian Kurdish-led fighters take Hajin, last town held by IS
BEIRUT — U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led fighters captured the last town held by the Islamic State group on Friday, after three months of ferocious battles in the militants’ single remaining enclave in eastern Syria, activists and Kurdish officials said.
The fall of Hajin marks an end to the extremist group’s hold over any significant urban area, which in three years shrunk from large swaths of Iraq and Syria the militants once held to this small enclave near the two countries’ shared borders.
The capture of Hajin, however, does not mark the end of the group which still holds some villages nearby and has a scattered presence and sleeper cells in both countries.
As the offensive by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces intensified over the past days under the cover of airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition, IS fighters withdrew south to areas east of the Euphrates river and west of SDF positions along the border with Iraq. Among the villages still held by extremists in the enclave are Sousa, Buqaan, Shaafah, Baghouz and Shajla.