IS using women and children as human shields in extremists' final pocket of land

Islamic State is using women and children as human shields as US-led coalition forces battle to rout the extremists from their final pocket of land.

Coalition soldiers have suspended attacks temporarily to try to encourage civilians inside the IS enclave to come out through a humanitarian corridor they have created in the desert.

Thousands have been streaming out in the last few weeks - several hundred each day, and as many as 3,000 in one 24-hour period.

Many of the women and children are in a poor physical condition after surviving freezing temperatures and a lack of food. Some of them need urgent medical attention.

Dozens of foreign fighters are trying to flee alongside them.

Blisteringly swift attacks in the weeks since President Trump announced that he planned to withdraw American troops from the region have reduced Islamic State to an area of about two kilometres on the Iraqi border.

But that last strip of IS land is crowded with civilians.

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From their forward operating position in Baghuz Fawqani, coalition troops can see the remaining IS extremists zipping around on motorbikes and in vans, appearing to make preparations for their last stand.

But a considerable number of women and children can be spotted walking around too, criss-crossing the small patch of land and milling around makeshift tents.

Coalition forces say the IS fighters are using the women and children as "human shields".

Syrian Democratic Forces Commander (SDF) Roni Qamishli told Sky News that IS were "finished".

"It is just a matter of days, not weeks," he said. "They are finished - militarily at least."

At the height of their power, IS controlled about 10 million people and huge swathes of land in Iraq and Syria. It was an area roughly the size of Britain.

But after a fierce battle relying heavily on US air power, the SDF has routed them from village after village and pushed them into this small pocket hugging the Iraqi border.

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We saw seriously wounded men among the group that had tried to escape from the IS enclave.

One man, who said he was Iraqi, had lost both his lower legs. He said he'd stepped on a mine.

But the coalition personnel who arrested him believe he lost his limbs fighting them.

Another man had a badly burned face. Part of his lip had gone and one eye was sealed. He showed us shrapnel wounds to his hip and abdomen. He too was immediately taken off for questioning as a suspected IS fighter.

Among the group there were at least two young French women among the group. Anissa Bruno, 19, said she had left Dunkirk to go to Syria with her mother and younger sister several years ago.

She was groomed on the internet by a man who persuaded her it was her Muslim duty to join the caliphate.

"I regret it," Anissa told Sky News in English with a heavy French accent.

"But I was 15 - I was not big in my head. Only one week on the internet and afterwards I go. I didn't even realise there was war. When I came here I hear bombs. I was so scared I say 'what's this?' because the man who talked to me, he don't say it is war."

She says she felt compelled to marry a year after arriving in Syria because, under caliphate rules, she was not allowed to go outside without a male relative as a chaperone.

"For six months, I did not see daylight," she said.

She married a French man she met there whom she escaped with, and has left behind her mother and sister, who are still inside the last IS pocket.

A second French woman said she was a Parisian called Lydia Fahem. She married two men in Syria who both died fighting. She now has two young children and like Anissa is yearning to go back to France.

The men are fingerprinted and will be held in prison. The women and children are also viewed as suspects and will be taken to coalition camps, out of IS control but still under detention.