At its peak, ISIS held large swaths of Iraq and Syria -- an expanse about the size of Portugal.
Its territory has now shrunk to a tiny pocket in Syria's eastern Deir Ezzor province, with militants holed up in the village of Baghouz Al-Fawqani, near the Iraqi border.
After pausing more than a week to allow thousands of civilians to flee the town, the SDF on Saturday renewed its push to wrest the last 4 square kilometers from the militants.
At sunrise on Sunday, US-led coalition airstrikes pummeled the western part of Baghouz Al-Fawqani, sending dark columns of smoke into the sky.
SDF commanders have told CNN that its fighters are being met by fierce resistance from ISIS militants, who are retaliating with heat-seeking missiles. Two SDF fighters were killed and others injured after one SDF vehicle was hit.
The militants have burrowed beneath the town, building a network of tunnels that allow them to shift from house to house undetected. The strategy, which the group deployed in Mosul and elsewhere, is presenting a real challenge, SDF commanders said.
At least 500 ISIS fighters are believed to remain in the town, thought to be a concentration of ISIS' most experienced and battle-hardened fighters and commanders.
American, French and British forces are also operating in the area, supporting the SDF. The teams, which are not engaged in street fighting, are firing artillery and mortars at ISIS positions.
Before the assault began at sunset on Saturday, civilians could be seen fleeing the town. CNN spoke to one person who said many people were trapped, but numbers were impossible to come by. SDF officials say some 1,500 civilians could still be inside.
At the group's height, 7.7 million people were estimated to live under ISIS' rule, according to Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), the official name for the coalition fighting ISIS. Many of those people paid the group taxes, fees and fines, which made up a large portion of ISIS' income.
In the years since, the group's annual revenue has more than halved: from up to $1.9b in 2014 to a maximum of $870m in 2016, according to a recent report by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) at King's College London.
Despite the loss of territory, and funds, a UN-monitoring committee estimated in July 2018 that ISIS membership in Iraq and Syria was still between 20,000 and 30,000.
Altogether, at least 41,490 international citizens have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS, per ICSR. And foreign fighters continue to arrive, undeterred -- CJTF-OIR estimates around 50 arrivals per month.
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