US-backed forces said Sunday thousands of people were believed to still be inside the last Islamic State group enclave in eastern Syria, as they sought to flush out die-hard fighters with airstrikes and shelling. Tens of thousands of dishevelled women, children and men have streamed out of a small pocket in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border in recent weeks - and they still keep coming.
The huge numbers have flummoxed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and slowed down their offensive aimed at dealing a knock-out blow to the jihadists' once-sprawling proto-state. At an SDF outpost inside Baghouz on Sunday, an AFP correspondent saw white smoke rising above the IS enclave as the sound of airstrikes and shelling rang out. A large blaze ravaged the makeshift encampment where holdout IS fighters are making a last stand. The Kurdish-led force, backed by US-led coalition warplanes, has rained fire on the jihadists for a week, blitzing thousands of fighters and family members into surrender.
But SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel told a news conference Sunday that according to the latest group that quit the pocket, "an estimated 5,000 people" are still holed up inside. He cautioned, however, that the SDF has not been able to verify that figure.
Those fleeing the pocket have previously reported widely inconsistent figures on the number of people still inside, ranging from thousands to a few hundred. The SDF spokesman said there was no clear timeline for the end of the operation, estimating that it may take several more days at least before IS is driven from its last pocket.