LOOK: The day the ISIS ‘caliphate’ fell

BAGHOUZ, Syria – Kurdish-led forces pronounced the death of the Islamic State group’s nearly five-year-old “caliphate” Saturday, March 23,  after flushing out diehard jihadists from their very last bastion in eastern Syria.

Fighters of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces raised their yellow flag in Baghouz, the remote riverside village where diehard jihadists of a variety of nationalities made a desperate, dramatic last stand.

The SDF’s victory capped a painstaking six-month operation and will go down as a symbolic date in a war that changed the face of the region and spurred a spate of global terror attacks.

“Syrian Democratic Forces declare total elimination of so-called caliphate and 100 percent territorial defeat of ISIS,” spokesman Mustefa Bali said in a statement, using another acronym for IS.

Here are photos of that dramatic day:

– Rappler.com