Raqqa, Syria
ISIS collapsing: The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces now control 80 percent of Raqqa, ISIS’s de facto capital, and have launched their final push to liberate the Syrian city. U.S.-led coalition forces are pounding the jihadists’ positions with airstrikes, and “it will not be long before we are in complete control of Raqqa,” one fighter told Israel’s Jerusalem Post. “They have nowhere to run now.” But SDF troops said the remainder of the fight would be slow going, because ISIS was using civilians as human shields and using tunnels and irrigation systems to sneak around the city and stage ambushes. ISIS is also meeting defeat in Iraq, where some 1,000 of its jihadists, who are supposed to fight to the death, surrendered en masse to Kurdish troops after losing the town of Hawija.