IS holdouts in Syria battle 'gone by tonight:' Trump

He showed off maps that illustrate the dramatic shrinking of territory held by the jihadist group in the period from his election in 2016 and now.

In one map shown by Trump to reporters in Washington and then again at a rally to factory workers in Lima, Ohio, IS territory marked in red extends over large areas.

A second map, he said, shows the jihadist organisation about to be wiped out.

"There is no red. In fact, there's actually a tiny spot which will be gone by tonight," he said.

Fighting continued in Baghouz, Syria, on Wednesday, but the IS jihadists are down to a tiny scrap of land, where they are surrounded and under heavy fire from a US-led coalition of Kurds, Syrians and others.

The conflict in Syria entered its ninth year last week, and the aid crisis spurred by the dying days of the IS "caliphate" compounded an already bleak humanitarian picture.

Thousands of people who have streamed out of the last IS stronghold now fill overcrowded camps and prisons run by the Kurds further north.

The 70,000 people crammed into the biggest camp - al-Hol - include more than 40,000 children, of dozens of different nationalities.

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