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Hundreds of people flee ISIS pocket as clashes mount

(Zaman Al Wasl)- About 300 civilians, mostly women and children, have been evacuated from the battleground of Hajin town through humanitarian corridors on Saturday, Kurdish media outlets said.

The influx of people out of Daesh pocket in eastern Deir Ezzor province has followed heavy US-led airstrikes that killed at least 25 people, including family members.

The International coalition warplanes carried out more than 1000 raids on the town.

The battle for Hajin has dragged on for three months, highlighting the difficulty of eradicating an extremist group determined to survive, according to AP. 

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched their offensive to retake Hajin on Sept. 10. It has been a grueling campaign, with sand storms and fog at times grounding coalition aircraft, allowing the militants to launch counteroffensives that have killed hundreds of SDF fighters. IS has also taken scores of prisoners and hundreds of civilians hostage.

The SDF says 30 Daesh militatns have been killed in the past 24 hours.

The U.S.-led coalition is supporting alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias assaulting the last Islamic State territory in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border.

The area that IS still holds in Syria represents less than 1 percent of the territory it controlled at its height. The pocket is home to some 15,000 people, including ISIS fighters and their families.

The U.S. military estimates there are about 2,000 remaining ISIS fighters there.

The Islamic State group once held an area the size of Britain across vast territories straddling parts of Iraq and Syria, running a so-called caliphate and planning international attacks from its headquarters in the Syrian city of Raqqa. 

Tens of thousands were killed in both countries as an array of local forces, some backed by a U.S.-led coalition, eventually drove the extremists out of virtually all the lands they once held. 

Zaman Al Wasl
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