ISIS IN SYRIA POISED FOR DEFEAT AT LAST URBAN BASTION

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 retook Al-Qaim on Friday.

The town lies along the Euphrates in Iraq and faces Albu 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.

DEIR EZZOR/WASHINGTON:

USA STRIKES ISIS TARGETS IN SOMALIA

The US conducted a pair of drone 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.