Isis blocks Syria escape path

Diehard jihadists have blocked roads out of the last scrap of their Islamic State group “caliphate” in Syria, US-backed forces fighting them said on Sunday, preventing hundreds of civilians from fleeing.

Ahead of a victory declaration expected within days and a subsequent US military pullout, US President Donald Trump called on his European allies to take back hundreds of alleged jihadists captured in Syria.

At a base for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces behind the frontline in eastern Syria, a reporter heard airplanes darting in the sky.

The jihadists declared a “caliphate” across large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, implementing their brutal interpretation of Islam on millions.

But several offensives have expelled them from all of it, except a tiny patch of less than half a kilometre square on the banks of the Euphrates river near the Iraqi border.

The US president in December shocked allies when he announced he would withdraw all 2,000 US troops from Syria because IS had been “beaten”.

That plan is set to be accelerated after a victory announcement. –