‘Victory near’ against IS in Raqa stronghold

RAQA: special forces battled Thursday to clear the last remaining Islamic State group jihadists holed up in their crumbling stronghold of Raqa.

“Victory is near” and would be declared in coming weeks, a spokeswoman for the operation to capture Raqa told Agence France-Pressse in the city where US-led air strikes sent clouds of gray smoke into the air.

Across the border in Iraq, security forces were attacking all remaining territory held by the extremists, who are fighting to prevent the all-out collapse of their self-proclaimed “caliphate.”

Most of Raqa, long a byword for the jihadists’ most gruesome atrocities, is now in the hands of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, supported by waves of heavy air strikes by a military coalition led by Washington.

“We control 80 percent of Raqa and line of our forces,” said Jihan Sheikh Ahmed, spokeswoman for the “Wrath of the Euphrates” operation.

“We’re in the final stage and will deliver victory to our people in Raqa within weeks,” she told Agence France-Presse.

She said the Kurdish-Arab alli around grain silos in the north of the city and the Raqa sports stadi to be storing weaponry. “But victory is near,” she said. SDF spokesman Talal Sello said the militia was battling jihadists in “20 percent of the city.”

“That sector is not under the control of Daesh... our forces are present there,” he told Agence France-Presse.

In the city Thursday, an Agence France-Presse correspondent heard US-led coalition warplanes carry- ing out air strikes around the silos.

- ning battles could also be heard as an Agence France-Presse journalist traveled across parts of the city.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said the SDF and US special forces were engaged in a “mopping up operation.”

But the operation was being slowed down by large numbers of mines planted by the jihadists in the city, where they have been under siege for three months, it said.

Exact estimates of the percentage of the city held by the SDF vary, with the Observatory putting it at 90 percent, but the US-led coalition saying that 70 percent had been “cleared.”

IS seized Raqa in early 2014, making it their de facto Syria capital. They are thought to have used the city to plan attacks abroad.

Across the border in Iraq, security forces backed by paramilitary units launched a dawn assault on a besieged IS-held pocket around the northern town of Hawija, just days after attacking the jihadists’ only other foothold in the country.

The territory still held by IS has been dwindling fast since its defeat in Iraq’s second city Mosul in July, with stronghold after stronghold coming under assault on both sides of the border with Syria.

After the defeat of IS in Mosul and the recapture of adjacent areas, Hawija and neighboring towns form the last enclave still held by IS in Iraq apart from a section of the Euphrates Valley downstream from the border with Syria. “Greetings to all of our forces, who are waging several battles of liberation at the same time and who are winning victory after victory and this will be another, with the help of God,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said.