US-backed militias in Syria have declared victory over Islamic State in its capital Raqqa, raising flags over the last jihadist footholds after a four-month battle.
The commander of the Raqqa campaign for the Syrian Democratic Forces said the fighting was over and the alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias was clearing the city's stadium of mines and any remaining militants.
An SDF spokesman said a formal declaration of victory in Raqqa would soon be made, once the city had been cleared of mines and any possible IS sleeper cells.
The fall of Raqqa, which was seized by Islamic State in 2014, is a potent symbol of the jihadist movement's collapsing fortunes.
IS has lost much of its territory in Syria and Iraq this year, including its most prized possession, Mosul.
In Syria, it has been forced back into a strip of the Euphrates valley and surrounding desert.
The SDF, backed by a US-led international alliance, has been fighting since June to take the city that IS used to plan attacks abroad.
Witnesses said militia fighters celebrated in the streets, chanting slogans from their vehicles.
Fighters hauled down the black flag of Islamic State, the last still flying over the city, from the National Hospital near the stadium.
"We do still know there are still IEDs and booby traps in and amongst the areas that ISIS once held, so the SDF will continue to clear deliberately through areas," said Colonel Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the coalition.
In a sign that the four-month battle for Raqqa had been in its last stages, Col Dillon said there were no coalition air strikes there on Monday.
The fight for Raqqa has shattered much of the city. Houses, apartment blocks and public buildings were flattened by airstrikes or badly damaged by shellfire.
The international charity Save the Children said many of the 270,000 people who fled the fighting would likely be stuck in aid camps for months or years.
The SDF has said that after the Raqqa battle ends, it would hand over control to a civil council set up by its political allies. It echoes the pattern in other territory the YPG and its allies have taken across northern Syria.
Kurdish influence in the future of the mainly Arab city has been a sensitive issue for some activists from Raqqa and for Turkey.
Turkey views the YPG militia as an extension of the PKK that has waged an insurgency on Turkish soil for three decades.
Militia retake hospital after heavy fighting
An SDF spokesman said it took the National Hospital after fierce fighting overnight and early this morning.
The stadium and hospital became the last major positions held by IS after some of its fighters quit, leaving only foreign jihadists to mount a last stand.
The SDF has been supported by a US-led international coalition with air strikes and special forces on the ground since it started the battle for Raqqa city in early June.
The final SDF assault began on Sunday after a group of Syrian jihadists evacuated the city under a deal with tribal elders, leaving only a hardcore of up to 300 fighters to defend the last positions.
Raqqa was the first big city Islamic State captured in early 2014, before its rapid series of victories in Iraq and Syria brought millions of people under the rule of its self-declared caliphate, which passed laws and issued passports and money.
It used the city as a planning and operations centre for its warfare in the Middle East and its string of attacks overseas, and also as a base to imprison Western hostages.
