Syrian forces seize last route into Raqqa
BEIRUT — U.S.-backed fighters have seized the last road into Raqqa and are moving eastward along the river south of the city, almost completing the siege on the militants’ de-facto capital, U.S. officials and a Syria war monitor said Thursday.
A spokesman for the U.S.led coalition said the Syrian Democratic Forces are now in control of all high-speed routes into Raqqa from the south. The Kurdish-led fighters had been advancing from the city’s east after they seized a major stronghold in May, and from the west and north.
“South of the Euphrates river, the SDF now control all high-speed routes into Raqqa,” Col. Joe Scrocca, spokesman for the U.S-led coalition, said via email.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a unit of the SDF has seized villages across the river, moving through the Kasret al-Faraj area. The Observatory described it as a “strategic” advance that completes the siege around Raqqa.”IS has no other choice now but to surrender or fight to the end,” said the Observatory director, Rami Abdurrahman.
Meanwhile, Iraqi forces retook the destroyed al-Nuri mosque in Mosul following a dawn push. The action is a hugely symbolic win: The site is where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only public appearance in July 2014, declaring an Islamic “caliphate” encompassing territories then-held by IS in Syria and Iraq.
“We are seeing the end of the fake Daesh state. The liberation of Mosul proves that,” Haider al-Abadi said using the Arabic acronym for IS in a statement posted to Twitter.
Iraqi and coalition officials said IS blew up the mosque complex last week. The Islamic State group has blamed a U.S. airstrike for the destruction, a claim rejected by a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition.
In Syria, Scrocca said coalition fighters have pushed in along different axes, isolating the city since the campaign began on June 6. The coalition has destroyed all bridges over the river, and the Syrian fighters are in control of the two dams that are the only crossing points remaining, he said. He estimated that 2,500 IS fighters remain in the city.
Tightening the noose around Raqqa, the de-facto capital of IS since they seized it in July 2014, is another symbolic development in the coordinated fight against the militant group. It effectively seals the territory and denies the militants an escape route to their other stronghold in Deir el-Zour, south of Raqqa.