Prominent French jihadis killed in IS-held area in Syria

OUTSIDE BAGHOUZ, Syria — A prominent French militant who joined the Islamic State group, Jean-Michel Clain, was killed in a mortar strike over the weekend as he struggled with wounds suffered in an earlier airstrike that killed his jihadi brother, his wife said Tuesday after emerging from the group's last pocket of land in Syria. The wife, who identified herself as Dorothee Maquere, said another French woman who had joined IS, Hayat Boumeddiene, was killed in another strike last week that allegedly hit a safe house known as the “French House,” where many French nationals were staying. Boumeddiene had been wanted by French police as a suspected accomplice in a 2015 attack in the Paris region. Maquere was one of hundreds of people who over the past two days streamed out of Baghouz, the last village held by the Islamic State group, under stepped-up assault the past four days by U.S.-backed forces. The latest wave of evacuations brings the final defeat of IS by the Kurdishled Syrian Democratic Forces one step closer — a milestone in the devastating four-year campaign to defeat the group's so-called “caliphate” that once covered a vast territory straddling both Syria and Iraq. Maquere, who is also French, told the Associated Press that the situation inside Baghouz was a “horror film,” saying there is a “massacre” inside, with constant shooting. People had to lay flat to avoid the crossfire, she said, adding that there were “no more homes, we live underground in tunnels and tents.” She said her 7-year-old daughter was killed and her other daughter wounded by an explosion two weeks ago. Two other sons were killed earlier in a mortar attack and Syrian government fire.