Airborne assault aims to cut off Isil’s way out

Helicopters fly in hundreds of allied Syrian fighters as net closes around jihadists’ stronghold in Raqqa

THE US-led coalition airdropped hundreds of allied Syrian fighters near the Isil-controlled city of Raqqa yesterday in a surprise attempt to cut off the jihadists’ main route out.

The aim of the operation is to secure the Euphrates river crossing and isolate the capital of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil’s) so-called cali- phate from the rest of the group’s territory in Syria.

Five helicopters, supported by five fighter jets, dropped the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters near the northern town of Tabqa, 28 miles west of Raqqa, yesterday afternoon.

With the help of coalition air strikes and special forces operations, the SDF, made up of troops from the YPG (Syrian Kurdish militia) and local Arab fighters, is waging a campaign to encircle Raqqa.

Eric Pohan, the spokesman for the Pentagon, said if successful, the operation would “basically cut Isis [Isil] off ” from western approaches to the city.

Mr Pohan said Tabqa was an important Isil-held area because it included a dam that provided electricity to area, as well as a military airfield.

As yesterday’s operation began, senior officials from the 68-nation alliance met in Washington to hear more about a revised plan drafted by the Pentagon and presented to US President Donald Trump in February.

Rex Tillerson, US Secretary of State, told the meeting America was committed to eradicating Isil and that its intensified campaign was aimed at putting pressure on the group. “We must defeat Isis,” he said. “It is the United States’ number one goal in the region.”

He reiterated the pledge to help create “safe zones” inside Syria, to enable refugees to return home and ease the burden on neighbouring countries. Mr Tillerson, who was quoted yesterday as saying he only took the Secretary of State job because his wife told him “God’s not through with you”, did not say where the zones might be or how they would be guaranteed.

But the US’s immediate concern is placing Raqqa in a stranglehold. Isil’s defeat in Raqqa and the city of Mosul in neighbouring Iraq – where the battle for control is in its sixth month – would mark the end of the jihadists’ caliphate.

Mr Trump ripped up his predecessor’s plan for Raqqa when he took office but few details of his proposal have emerged. He is said, however, to have already given US commanders more leeway to conduct strikes on their own authority. There has been a dramatic rise in civilian casualties in the past month. A US-led coalition air strike hit a school being used as a shelter by families displaced from Raqqa on Tuesday, killing at least 33 people.

The nearest Isil installation to the site of the air strike was a religious school two miles away, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A coalition raid on a mosque outside Aleppo last Thursday killed 46.

Earlier this month, the coalition said its raids in Syria and Iraq had unintentionally killed at least 220 civilians. But other monitors claim the number is far higher. Airwars, a UK-based organisation, suggested as many as 370 civilian deaths could be attributed to coalition raids in the first week of March alone.