Fierce offensive against militants

BEIRUT — Fierce fighting was under way Monday between U.S.-backed Syrian forces and the Islamic State group around the extremists’ last foothold in eastern Syria, with the besieged militants fighting back with suicide car bombs, snipers and booby traps, a Syrian war monitor and a Kurdish news agency said.

An Italian photographer was wounded in the battle between advancing U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and the militants holed up in the village of Baghouz, near the border with Iraq, an Italian news agency said.

The Syrian Democratic Forces on Saturday launched a final push to clear Islamic State fighters from the area under the cover of air strikes by the U.S.backed coalition.

The capture of Baghouz and nearby areas would mark the end of a four-year global war to end the Islamic State group’s territorial hold over large parts of Syria and Iraq, where the group established its self-proclaimed “caliphate” in 2014.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the push by the Kurdish-led SDF has been slow due to land mines and sniper fire, as well as the extremists’ use of tunnels and suicide car bombs. Islamic State also using civilians as human shields, the Observatory said.

The Italian news agency ANSA said Gabriele Micalizzi, 34, was injured in the face by splinters of a rocket-propelled grenade, adding that his life was not in danger. It said he was being airlifted by the coalition to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

U.S. officials have said in recent weeks that Islamic State has lost 99.5 percent of its territory and is holding on to just 2 square miles.