Syria Kurd force expects battle for Raqqa in ‘days’
BEIRUT — The battle for control of the Islamic State militant group’s self-declared capital, Raqqa, in northern Syria, will begin “within days,” a spokesman for a U.S.-backed Syrian force at the city’s edges said Saturday.
Fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces are encamped around the city’s northern and eastern divisions and on Saturday made new progress against the militants to approach the city from the south bank of the Euphrates River. Raqqa lies on the northern side of the river.
Spokesman Cihan Sheikh Ehmed said the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is backed by the U.S. military, would begin the battle for Raqqa “very soon.”
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Syrian Democratic Forces has been engaged in fierce fighting with Islamic State militants along the southern bank of the Euphrates River, around Mansoura, approximately 16 miles southwest of Raqqa. The Syrian Democratic Forces said Saturday that its fighters controlled 90 percent of the town.
Raqqa’s size poses a challenge for the Syrian Democratic Forces, which has captured smaller towns and strongholds from the Islamic State in northern Syria. As of March, there were an estimated 300,000 people inside Raqqa. Activists reported that the militants were forcing them to stay and using them as human shields.
Raqqa is the largest city to have fallen under the complete control of the Islamic State in Syria, after militants seized it from rebels in January 2014.
The city’s capture heralded nearly two years of expansion for the group across northern Syria and Iraq, and it formally split with al-Qaida’s central leadership in February that year. Shortly after, its leader declared a “caliphate” over the areas under Islamic State control, which stretched to include Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.
The Islamic State group
also is struggling to defend Mosul, the largest city it once held in neighboring Iraq. U.S.backed Iraqi forces and allied militias have captured most of Mosul since opening their campaign in October.
On Wednesday, the Islamic State’s Aamaq news agency reported that the coalition had destroyed Raqqa’s main telecommunication’s center.
The campaign has led to wide-scale displacement in Raqqa province, according to the U.N, and conditions are deteriorating inside the provincial capital.
There also are reports of mounting civilian casualties, though they are difficult to confirm because of the war environment.
In May, nearly 95,000 residents fled their homes or shelters because of violence in Raqqa province, according to the U.N. refugee agency. But others have returned to their homes as the Syrian Democratic Forces captures Islamic State-held ground.
“The offensive on Raqqa has intensified over recent days, when more than 100 air and artillery strikes were reported to have caused many civilian casualties,” the agency said Thursday in a report.
The violence around Mansoura has produced conflicting casualty figures, common in the fog of the war.
An airstrike on March 21 leveled a school in the town, leading monitoring groups to say at least 33 civilians taking shelter inside had been killed.
U.S. Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend acknowledged days later that coalition aircraft bombed the school but said preliminary intelligence indicated that the victims were Islamic State militants occupying the building, not refugees.
Roadblocks and damage to bridges and infrastructure has driven up the prices of fuel and basic foodstuffs inside Raqqa, according to the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, compounding the hardship inside the city.
The U.S. has backed the Syrian Democratic Forces with weapons, air power, and ground support in its campaign to defeat the Islamic State in northern Syria. It began arming the fighters under a new order from President Donald Trump’s administration in late May, to the dismay of Turkey, which says the factions receiving the weapons are terrorists affiliated with the Kurdish insurgency inside its own borders.