Middle Orient

U.S.-led coalition warplanes struck Islamic State’s last stronghold in eastern Syria and hundreds of civilians fled the besieged enclave on Monday as U.S.-backed fighters pressed their campaign to seize it.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who arrived in Lebanon on Sunday met Hassan Nasrallah the leader of the militant group Hezbollah. In recent days, Hezbollah has been pushing the idea of Lebanon officially accepting Iranian military assistance, which Zarif earlier said Iran would be looking forward to.

Islamic State group militants cornered in their last foothold in eastern Syria fought back with suicide car bombs, snipers and booby traps Monday, slowing Kurdish fighters advancing under the cover of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, Kurdish news agencies and a Syrian war monitor said.

Their home countries don’t want them and holding trials in Syria isn’t an option: now suspected foreign terrorists could end up facing tough justice over the border in Iraq.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) began an assault against the final Islamic State enclave in eastern Syria on Saturday, aiming to wipe out the last vestige of the jihadist group’s “caliphate” in the SDF’s area of operations.

U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian forces said Saturday they have launched a final push to defeat the Islamic State group in the last tiny pocket the extremists hold in eastern Syria.

The top US commander in the war against ISIS aligned himself Sunday with the US intelligence community assessment that there are “tens of thousands” of ISIS fighters spread across Syria and Iraq.

U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces say they have recaptured 41 positions held by Islamic State militants as they seek to clear the last enclave the militant group controls in eastern Syria. Mustafa Bali, an SDF spokesman, tweeted Sunday that SDF forces had destroyed fortifications in the Village of Baghuz, but that …

Iraqi armed factions said Thursday they have launched dozens of missiles targeting Daesh militants holed up in a Syrian village across the border. The state-sanctioned Popular Mobilization Forces said they fired 50 missiles at targets in Baghouz village, in the last speck of territory held by the extremists.

Iraq’s Kurdish Peshmerga leaders say ISIL still a threat and US should not withdraw from Syria. A pair of armoured vehicles parked in a corner of the Peshmerga headquarters in northern Iraq form a stark reminder of the threat the region is facing by ISIL.