US-backed forces repel Islamic State attack near Syrian dam
AMMAN (Reuters) – American-backed Syrian forces repelled a major counterattack by Islamic State gunmen holding out at the country’s largest dam and in the nearby town of Tabqa, the group and activists said on Sunday.
The dam is a key strategic target in the military campaign to isolate and capture the Syrian city of Raqqa, 40 km. to the east and Islamic State’s biggest urban stronghold.
The US-backed group said insurgents attacked their positions northeast of Tabqa and at an air base to the south of the town where dozens of their fighters were killed, but the coalition of Kurdish and Arab militias was making slower advances in a village east of the town.
Jehan Sheikh Ahmad, a spokeswoman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, spearheaded by the powerful Kurdish YPG militia, said the Sunni jihadists were stepping up their resistance as SDF forces got closer to encircling the town and the dam.
“Our forces are advancing... [Islamic State fighters] are facing large difficulties and so they are starting counterattacks,” said the official whose forces have US special forces with them.
The SDF began an assault to capture the dam and the nearby town almost two weeks ago after the coalition landed some of its fighters on the southern side of the Euphrates near Tabqa, leading to its capture of an air base.
The SDF has been waging a multi-phased offensive since November to isolate Raqqa, with backing from the US-led coalition taking territory to the north and east of the province.
Hundreds of families with their cattle, property, motor bikes and vans continued on Sunday to flee from villages under ENGINEERS, JOURNALISTS and Syrian Democratic Forces fighters run for cover as ISIS shells are fired at SDF positions near Tabqa Dam, 40 km. upstream from Raqqa on the Euphrates River, in Syria last Wednesday. Islamic State control.
The US-backed forces say at least 7,000 people have taken shelter in their areas since the campaign to capture Tabqa.
Many are also fleeing air strikes on civilian areas in Raqqa province that have left dozens dead, according to activists and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Last month strikes believed to be conducted by the US-led coalition hit a bakery and a local market in Tabqa town with dozens of civilians killed. Another raid that hit a school sheltering displaced people near Raqqa also killed scores. SDF denies civilians are targeted. Islamic State and the Syrian government have both said the hydroelectric dam is vulnerable to collapse after strikes by the US-led coalition
Syrian officials say that would lead to catastrophic flooding in the cities and towns in the Euphrates Valley downstream.
The SDF and the coalition have denied the dam is in danger.
Residents, however, say an SDF attempt last week to relieve the dam’s water levels by opening a canal from the Balikh River that flows into the Euphrates had flooded cultivated agricultural land in several villages.