In a vast, dust-swept landscape, Islamic State caliphate ends in rubble and wreckage

BEIRUT - Its militants believed they would conquer Rome, Paris and Washington. It sought to smash the century-old borders that defined the Middle East, and create a project whose central slogan was "Enduring and expanding."

Instead, the culmination of that vision came in a dust-swept hamlet on Syria's border with Iraq on Saturday. There, U.S.-backed Syrian and Arab militiamen punched through Islamic State's final sliver of territory in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz, marking the end of the almost five-year battle to destroy the caliphate.

"Syrian Democratic Forces declare total elimination of so-called caliphate and percent100 territorial defeat of ISIS. On this unique day, we commemorate thousands of martyrs whose