Syrian forces ‘negotiating’ to free civilians from Daesh holdout

US-backed Syrian forces are negotiating to evacuate civilians from Daesh’s last redoubt which now faces “inevitable defeat,” the international coalition against the militants said on Thursday.

Remaining civilians are expected to be evacuated in eastern Syria on Thursday, US-backed forces said, clearing the way for them to wipe out the last vestige of militant rule that once straddled Syria and Iraq.

Iraqi sources said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which have besieged the last Daesh enclave near the Iraqi border, handed over more than 150 Iraqi and other foreign militants to Iraq on Thursday, under a deal involving a total of 502.

The village of Baghouz at the Iraqi border is the last scrap of territory left to Daesh in the Euphrates Valley region that became its final populated stronghold in Iraq and Syria after a series of defeats in 2017.

Hundreds of people including women and children were trucked out of the last patch of Daesh territory on Wednesday, but the SDF said that a large number of civilians remained inside.

Trapped militants

The Kurdish-led SDF, backed by the warplanes of the US-led coalition, have trapped Daesh militants in less than half-a-sq-km in the village of Baghouz.

“Coalition forces, to include the US, continue to support the SDF as they negotiate having innocent civilians released and their fighters returned with the inevitable defeat in Baghouz,” coalition spokesman Sean Ryan told AFP.

There was no immediate comment from the SDF, which has previously identified the remaining civilians as mostly wives and chil- dren of Daesh militants.

Thousands of people — mostly women and children related to Daesh members — have streamed out of Baghouz in recent weeks.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said on Wednesday that there were negotiations for the surrender of the last Daesh militants. It said there were “reports of a deal” but the details were unclear.

But the militants have since lost almost all their territory and hundreds of foreigners suspected of being Daesh militants, as well as related women and children, are being held by the SDF.

Though the fall of Baghouz marks