Aleppo (Syria) - ISIS (Daesh) no longer has a presence in Syria's Aleppo province after withdrawing from a series of villages where regime forces were advancing, an activist group said Friday. ISIS "withdrew from 17 towns and villages and is now effectively outside of Aleppo province after having a presence there for four years," said Rami Abdel-Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The withdrawal came a day after Iraqi forces made significant gains against the militants in the Iraqi city of Mosul and Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared an end to the group's self-proclaimed caliphate. Regime forces had been advancing on a sliver of southeastern Aleppo province around a key highway linking Hama province to the southwest and Raqqa province further east.
