U.S.-backed forces attack last main holdout of ISIS in Syria

BEIRUT — U.S.-backed forces have launched what they hope will be the final battle for territory in the four-year war against the Islamic State with an assault on the militants’ last major holdout in the eastern Syrian desert, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

Ground forces with the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces began the offensive Monday night, advancing toward the town of Hajin on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River aided by U.S. airstrikes, U.S. and SDF officials said.

Hajin is the largest town in an approximately 95-square-mile stretch of mostly desert terrain along the river’s east bank.

The conquest of this territory would mark an effective end to the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate, which at its peak in 2014-2015 spanned vast areas of Syria and Iraq.