U.S.-backed forces move to take ISIS city in Syria

Town is Islamic State’s defacto capital and last stronghold in area

BEIRUT — U.S.-backed forces have begun the “long and difficult” battle to capture the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital, the U.S.-led coalition fighting the extremist group said Tuesday.

Kurdish-led militants began laying the groundwork for the offensive in November, edging through the surrounding province and cutting supply lines into the city. But a showdown for the city itself will prove a major test for the coalition, with the potential for high civilian casualties.

“The fight for Raqqa will be long and difficult,” Lt. Gen Steve Townsend, the coalition’s commanding general, said in a statement. In northeastern Syria, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a group dominated by Syrian Kurdish militants, announced that a “great battle” had begun.

Islamic State militants seized Raqqa in January 2014, transforming it into the central hub from where the group’s leadership planned expansion throughout the region and attacks around the world.

Three-and-a-half years later, the city has diminished in importance as the group has lost twothirds of its self-declared caliphate across Syria and Iraq.

But U.S. officials estimate that at least 3,000 Islamic State fighters are still holed up inside Raqqa, where they have erected defenses against the anticipated assault.

Among them are as many as 200,000 civilians, who aid groups fear may be used as human shields, a tactic employed by the Islamic State in its strongholds across Syria and Iraq as coalition forces closed in.

Conditions inside the city are understood to be dire. According to a recent assessment by the Syria Relief Network, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations, two-thirds of the population are living on two meals a day amid dwindling supplies of essentials caused by the siege on the city.

Talal Sillo, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, said Tuesday that the “great battle” had begun.

“Morale is high and military readiness to implement the military plan is complete, in coordination with the U.S.-led coalition,” he told reporters in northeast Syria, flanked by representatives of Kurdish male and female fighting units, as well as Syrian rebel groups and Arab tribesmen.