Fierce fighting for IS stronghold

Seven children among 16 killed in airstrikes; US likely weeks away from withdrawal of ground troops

US-led coalition’s air strikes on the last jihadist pocket in Syria on Monday killed 16 civilians, including at least seven children, a war monitor said.

Eight women and one elderly man were also among the civilians killed while trying to flee towards the Iraqi border, said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The coalition was not immediately available for comment, but has repeatedly said it does its utmost to avoid targeting civilians. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Saturday announced the final push to expel hundreds of diehard jihadists from their last patch of territory in eastern Syria on the Iraq border.

The SDF estimates that up to 600 IS fighters could still remain inside, most of them foreigners. Nineteen IS fighters were killed in clashes with the SDF on Monday, the monitor said.

The Kurdish-led force lost nine fighters during battles with jihadists, the Observatory said.

The SDF does not usually divulge casualty figures until weeks or months later.

There was fierce fighting between US-backed Syrian forces and the Islamic State group around the extremists’ last foothold in eastern Syria, with the besieged militants fighting back using suicide car bombs, snipers and booby traps. The capture of the IS-held village of Baghouz and nearby areas would mark the end of a four-year global war to end IS’ territorial hold over large parts of Syria and Iraq, where the group established its self-proclaimed “caliphate” in 2014.

The United States is likely just weeks away from starting the withdrawal of ground troops from Syria ordered by President Donald Trump, the top US commander overseeing American forces in the Middle East has said. US Army General Joseph Votel, head of the US Central Command, cautioned that the exact timing would depend on the situation in Syria. The US military has already started withdrawing equipment from Syria. Asked whether the withdrawal of America’s more than 2,000 troops would begin in days or weeks, Votel said: “Probably weeks. But again, it will all be driven by the situation on the ground.”

“In terms of the withdrawal ... I think we’re right on track with where we wanted to be,” Votel told reporters traveling with him during a trip to the Middle East.

“Moving people is easier than moving equipment and so what we’re trying to do right now is again (to) kind of clear out those materials, that equipment, that we do not need.”