Syrian Democratic Forces News

11 Iraqi soldiers were killed by IS militants. Kurdish-led forces in Syria killed 23 Islamic State militants.

The riot began Saturday at a prison in the city of Hassakeh, one of the largest facilities where IS members are held, and control was reestablished Sunday evening, said Kino Gabriel, a spokesman for the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

Of the 11 victims, five people, including a Syrian baby, were reportedly killed in Kurdish shelling of Turkish border towns.

US-backed fighters said they had taken positions in Islamic State`s last enclave in eastern Syria and air strikes pounded the tiny patch of land beside the Euphrates River early on Monday, a Reuters journalist said.

Islamic State faces defeat in the last shred of its main territory in Syria and Iraq where it announced a "caliphate" in 2014, suffering years of steady retreats after arousing global fury through grotesque displays of cruelty.

The SDF and the US-backed coalition could not immediately be reached for comment.

With US-backing, the SDF has routed Islamic State and is on the verge of recapturing the final bits of its once sprawling territory.

A car bombing blamed on the Islamic State group killed at least 26 displaced people in eastern Syria on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

U.S.-backed militias raised a flag inside Raqqa stadium on Tuesday, a Reuters witness said, as a four-month battle to take Islamic State`s Syrian capital came to an end.

On October 17, SDF spokesman Talal Sello told AFP the US-backed fighters finally had "taken full control of Raqa" from IS.

US-backed fighters battling to oust the Islamic State group from Syria's Raqa were nearing the "final week" of their assault, the campaign's commander said today.

The large quantities of weapons aim to help the SDF in their fight to completely clear Raqqa from IS, said the group.

US-backed fighters pierced jihadist-held Raqa from the south for the first time, crossing the Euphrates River to enter a new part of the Syrian city, a monitor said.

The United Nations estimates some 100,000 civilians remain in Raqa, with the jihadists accused of using them as human shields.

But IS fighters hit back with a counterattack that included several suicide bombings against the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters trying to seize control of the city.

A U.S.-backed Syrian coalition of Kurdish and Arab groups advanced against Islamic State in the jihadists` Syrian capital of Raqqa on Sunday, taking the al-Qadisia district, they said. 

Islamic State is also facing defeat in its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul and is being forced into retreat across much of Syria, where Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria is its last major foothold.

An American fighter jet has for the first time downed a Syrian warplane that Washington accused of attacking US-backed fighters, in a new escalation between the United States and regime forces.

In Mosul, where a US-backed offensive against Islamic State on Saturday entered its ninth month, the militants have been squeezed into an enclave on the western bank of the Tigris river.   

In Mosul, where a US-backed offensive against Islamic State on Saturday entered its ninth month, the militants have been squeezed into an enclave on the western bank of the Tigris river.