An official for the non-aligned, USA -backed Syrian Democratic Forces says its fighters have launched a battle to capture Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State group.
Senior Kurdish officials said the announcement would be made today (June 6) at a press conference, according to ARA News.
USA -backed fighters have launched an operation to try to seize control of the city of Raqqa in northern Syria, ISIS' so-called capital.
The spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) told reporters that the offensive operation was launched this morning in coordination with the coalition.
Raqqa is now surrounded from the east, north and west, and opposition activists have reported intense shelling and air strikes on the city since Monday night, which killed at least 12 people. The US-led coalition is carrying out air strikes on Raqqa to support the SDF offensive. However, the USA views the PKK/PYD as its ally in the fight against ISIL in northern Syria.
On Tuesday, Arab and Kurdish SDF fighters advanced to the city's eastern edge and broke into Raqa for the first time.
According to the sources, the Syrian wing of the PKK supported by the USA is advancing in the district of Mashlab towards the industrial city and the ancient walls of Raqqa enclosing the historic center.
Billionaire Moshiri to spearhead Everton’s Italian job
Indeed, it is only by virtue of Falcinelli’s prowess in the final third that Crotone still remains in contention to survive. In Romelu Lukaku, Koeman has a player with the capability of firing Everton to far headier heights than seventh place.
US President Donald Trump authorized the shipment of heavy weapons and armored vehicles to the YPG a week before a mid-May meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Townsend said "it's hard to convince new recruits that ISIS is a winning cause when they just lost their twin "capitals" in both Iraq and Syria", referring to IS by another acronym.
"We all saw the heinous attack in Manchester, England", Townsend said. "ISIS threatens all our nations, not just Iraq and Syria, but in our homelands as well".
The U.K. -based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which cites a wide network of activists and sources on the ground in Syria, said coalition jets bombed the civilians as they attempted to escape the jihadi bastion in a dinghy across the Euphrates River. It said they were likely carried out by the coalition.
Looming over the Raqqa battles is the potential for mass civilian casualties similar to those seen during the battle for Mosul, the Islamic State's capital in Iraq. It began with anti-government protests but has since evolved into a complex multi-front war involving the army and rebel groups as well as the SDF and IS.
The SDF is a Kurdish-Syrian Arab alliance including fighters from the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara views as a "terror group" linked to Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) separatists inside Turkey. Raqqa is much smaller than Mosul, but even the battles for Manbij and Tabqa - towns in northwest Syria on the SDF's route to Raqqa - took weeks to complete. Humanitarian aid organization International Rescue Committee said 200,000 people were still trapped inside, and warned civilians in Raqqa risk being killed by Daesh snipers or mines if they try to flee but could be used by the militants as human shields if they remain.
Comments