U.S.- backed forces seize ISIS camp in Syria

BAGHOUZ, Syria — U.S.backed Syrian forces on Tuesday seized control of an encampment held by the Islamic State group in eastern Syria, after hundreds of militants surrendered overnight, a spokesman said, signaling the group’s collapse after months of stiff resistance. A group of suspects involved in a January bombing that killed four Americans in northern Syria were among militants captured by the Kurdish-led forces.

The taking of the ISIS camp was a major advance but not the final defeat of the group in Baghouz, the last village held by the extremists where they have been holding out for weeks, according to Mustafa Bali, the spokesman for the Kurdish-led force known as the Syrian Democratic Forces.

An unknown number of ISIS militants still clung to a tiny sliver of land trapped between the Euphrates River and the encampment now held by the SDF, officials in the force said.

The militants have been putting up a desperate fight, their notorious propaganda machine working even on the brink of collapse. On Monday, ISIS issued a video showing its militants furiously defending the encampment, a junkyard of wrecked cars, motorcycles and tents. In the footage, they shoot nonstop with AK-47s and M-16s from behind trucks, vehicles and sand berms.

The complete fall of Baghouz would mark the end of the Islamic State group’s self-declared territorial “caliphate,” which, at its height, stretched across much of Syria and Iraq. But even after Baghouz’s fall, ISIS maintains a scattered presence and sleeper cells that threaten a continuing insurgency.

In the seizure Tuesday of the encampment, hundreds of wounded and sick militants were captured and evacuated to nearby military hospitals for treatment, said Bali in a Twitter post. Still, he cautioned, “this is not a victory announcement, but a significant progress in the fight.”