About 2,000 ISIL terrorists are estimated to remain in the Syrian city of Raqqa, fighting for their survival in the face of an offensive by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a senior US official said on Friday.

Brett McGurk, US special envoy for the coalition against ISIL, said the SDF had cleared about 45 percent of Raqqa since launching an attack in early June to seize ISIL’s stronghold in northern Syria.

“Today in Raqqa ISIL is fighting for every last block … and fighting for their own survival” McGurk told reporters.

Some 2,000 ISIL fighters are left in the city and “most likely will die in Raqqa,” he said.

The assault on Raqqa coincided with the final stages of a campaign to drive ISIL from the Iraqi city of Mosul, where the militants were defeated last month.

McGurk said ISIL has lost 27,000 square miles (70,000 sq km) of the territory it once held in the two countries – 78 percent of what they had seized in Iraq and 58 percent of what they held in Syria.

Source: Reuters