Battle debris piles high at Syria dam
Burnt-out tanks, bodies and spent ammunition litter the roadside leading to the dam controlled by ISIL, but a US-backed alliance of forces are closing in fast
TABQA DAM, SYRIA // The road to the Tabqa dam in northern Syria is strewn with evidence of the clashes between a USbacked alliance of fighters and ISIL.
Burnt-out parts of vehicles and ammunition casings litter the roadside leading into the dam complex, which the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) entered on Friday.
Two overturned tanks lie in the rubble and dirt berms along the roadside, and the bodies of several alleged ISIL fighters lie in the shallow water of a canal.
The group still controls the main dam itself, Syria’s largest, which straddles the Euphrates River.
But fighters from the Kurdish-Arab SDF alliance, who were airlifted behind ISIL lines last week by US forces, entered the complex from the north on Friday and seized part of it. The battle for the dam has sparked concern about its integrity, with fears that damage to it could cause its failure and catastrophic flooding.
The barrier went out of service over the weekend, a source at the dam said, after damage to its power station.
“We tried to preserve the dam as much as possible so that it was not damaged,” said SDF commander Rojda Felat.
“We think Daesh has laid explosives on it to prevent our advance,” she added.
Signs of ISIL control are everywhere, starting with a placard cautioning that the maximum load allowed on the barrier is 50 tonnes, and warning that any additional weight will incur a fine.
Elsewhere, a sign in white Arabic script on a black background reads: “The Quran is our constitution, Mohammed is our leader, and jihad is our path.”
The battle for the dam is part of the SDF’s preparations for a larger assault on the extremist group’s self- declared Syrian capital Raqqa, which is about 55 kilometres east of Tabqa.
The alliance fighting ISIL in Iraq and Syria is aiming to effectively encircle Raqqa and captured the nearby Tabqa military airport on Sunday.
The coalition has launched air strikes in support of the operation, and Ms Felat said its forces were stepping up their role on the ground.
“This time, coalition forces took part in greater force than previously, with new tactics such as the airlift, crossing the river, and artillery fire,” she said.
As fears over the dam’s integrity rose, the SDF announced on Monday that it was pausing operations for four hours to allow engineers to enter and examine the facility.
A source at the dam said the team needed more time to carry out inspections and repairs.
“It will take two or three days to assess and repair the damage, which was a result of the bombardment of the electrical distribution room,” he said.
“The teams will try to find alternatives to the power station to make the dam functional again,” he said. But an SDF spokeswoman said inspections had been successful and the pause in fighting was now over. “There is no damage to the dam or its function, the engineers have finished their work and confirmed that the dam has not been damaged, and on this basis the ceasefire ended,” said Jihan Ahmed.
This year, the United Nations raised concern about the prospect of damage to the dam in fighting, warning that water levels – which put additional pressure on the structure as they rise – were already high. It warned damage to the dam could produce “massive scale flooding” in Raqqa province and even further east in Deir Ezzor, with “catastrophic humanitarian implications”.
There are fears that damage to the dam could lead to catastrophic flooding