SDF confirms reports that four ISIS militants blew themselves up in Raqqa

Remnants of the so-called Islamic State are still active in Syria with new reports that four members of the extremist group blew themselves up in Raqqa, an area liberated from the militants two years ago.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Remnants of the so-called Islamic State are still active in Syria with new reports that four members of the extremist group blew themselves up in Raqqa, an area liberated from the militants' control two years ago.

Mustafa Bali, the head of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Press Office, confirmed to the Associated Press on Wednesday that four Islamic State fighters detonated their explosive vests during clashes with the SDF and local security forces in Raqqa overnight.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor group, also reported the incident on Wednesday.

The October 2017 liberation of Raqqa, once the Islamic State's capital in Syria, was a notable victory for the US-led coalition and it’s SDF allies as they went on to crush the self-proclaimed caliphate.

Despite the SDF and the US-led coalition announcing the extremist group’s military defeat in Syria on March 23, Islamic State sleeper cell attacks continue in Arab majority areas that were cleared of the militants.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Bali said the SDF continues to monitor the recently liberated area of Baghouz in northeastern Syria for remnants of the Islamic State.

He noted that the Kurdish-led forces are “combing the area in Baghouz and its vicinity” where they continue to dismantle mines and traps and search for sleeper cells and other traces of the extremist group.

There are “still some terrorists hiding in the cave system in [the] vicinity of mount Baghouz,” Bali explained.

Related Article: SDF continues to ‘comb’ area in Baghouz for ISIS sleeper cells: spokesperson

The victory announcement followed a prolonged military offensive against the extremist group’s last remaining pocket of territory in war-torn Syria and marked the end of the self-declared caliphate that had been in place since June 2014. At its height, militants controlled an area comparable to the size of Britain, with an estimated population of 12 million people under its rule.  

Editing by John J. Catherine