By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA (Reuters) - US-backed democracy forces in Syria say Islamist fighters in eastern Syria are still fighting until late on Friday after US President Donald Trump announced that the organization had lost its last pocket in Syria.
On Friday, artillery and air raids resumed against the last fighters of the state organization trapped on the banks of the Euphrates river in Baguoz, in the border province of Deir al-Zour with Iraq in eastern Syria, according to Syria's democratic forces led by its backbone units to protect the Kurdish people.
On Friday evening, the director of the media center of the Syrian Democratic Forces Mustafa Bali announced that "fierce battles are taking place around a hill in the Baguoz to eliminate the remnants of the state organization."
Adnan Afrin, spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, said on Friday evening that "small groups of people who are refusing to surrender are launching attacks and our forces are responding to them." Our forces are pressing them to surrender or end the fighting.
These developments came after Trump showed reporters a map showing the territory lost by the state organization during his presidency. The US president has said on several occasions over the past few weeks that the Islamic state has lost all its territory even in spite of the continuing fierce fighting.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders announced the elimination of the state organization in Syria by 100%. President Trump congratulated the Americans on the announcement, carrying the same map he carried the day before that he said showed the destruction of the organization's areas in northeastern Syria.
Two hours before Trump's statement, a journalist heard Reuters say two air strikes and saw smoke rising from the Bagouz, where the organization showed resistance until the last minute.
Since February 9, Syria's democratic forces have been attacking the organization's pocket in the town of Al-Bagouz, near the village of Sousse, which it has previously controlled.
Syria's democratic forces made progress Tuesday in the last enclave of the organization and seized control of the organization's camp in the town of Baguoz, besieging its reluctant fighters to surrender in a small spot near the Euphrates River.
A spokesman for the forces, Keno Gaberiel, said hundreds of organized fighters and their families were still on the outskirts of the camp, where they retreated to hideouts on the river's edge and at the bottom of a hill overlooking the Baguoz. "We will end our military operations within a day or two, unless there are sudden developments," he said.
But Bashar al-Jaafari, Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters that the state organization was not yet over in Syria, noting that his regime, backed by Russia and Iran, was fighting the organization, not the United States.
The organization's loss of control of the Baguz ends its control of any population areas in Syria and Iraq after it has previously ruled one-third of the two countries, but remains a threat to its fighters operating in remote cities and regions with the ability to launch attacks.