ISLAMIC STATE FACES DEFEAT IN LAST SYRIAN URBAN BASTION

DEIR EZZOR/WASHINGTON: Syrian and allied forces converged on Saturday on holdout Islamic State group fighters in the Syrian border town of Albu Kamal, the jihadists’ very last urban bastion following a string of losses.

On Friday, Russian-backed Syrian forces took full control of Deir Ezzor, which was the last city where IS still had a presence after being expelled from Hawija and Raqqa last month.

The borders of a “caliphate” that three years ago spanned territory in Iraq and Syria roughly the size of Britain further shrank on the group’ s surviving fighters when Iraqi forces re took Al-Q aim on Friday.

The town lies along the Euphrates in Iraq and faces Al bu Kamal, which is where many of IS’s remaining fighters are thought to have regrouped.

The Syrian army and allied militia groups were still some 30 km from Albu Kamal but Iraqi paramilitaries crossed the border to take on IS, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

USA STRIKESISIS TARGETS INSOMALIA

The US conducted a pair of dr one strikes against Islamic State fighters in Somalia on Friday, the first time America has hit the jihadists in the Horn of Africa nation, officials said.

The strikes occurred in northeastern Somalia and killed “several terrorists,” the US military’s Africa Command said.