Syrian activists say an airstrike by the US -led coalition has killed at least 20 civilians in a part of Syria held by the Islamic State group.
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The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said heavy fighting was under way on Monday north of Raqqa between IS and SDF fighters.
The Daesh militants have set off five auto bombs targeting US-backed Syrian armed groups attacking Raqqa, a Kurdish source said on Monday, saying the fight to drive Daesh from its stronghold city would “not be easy”.
The attack on Raqqa comes as the Iraqi Army is temporarily bogged down in street fighting in Mosul, ISIS’s other major stronghold in Iraq.
Al-Heisha is controlled by the IS and has been a target in a new assault by the US -backed Syrian Democratic Forces as they push to capture Raqqa.
The Observatory said 30,000 fighters with the SDF were taking part in the offensive on al-Raqqa, adding that the SDF captured 10 villages and farmlands in the northern countryside of al-Raqqa.
SDF spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed told AFP that the alliance’s forces had advanced on two fronts towards Raqa amid heavy fighting.
The US-led coalition, which launched its air campaign against IS two years ago, hopes that driving the group from the two cities will deal it a knockout blow.
Hossam Issa of the activist media collective Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently says his group’s problem with the SDF is that it’s coordinating with the Syrian government as a way to further the PYD’s Kurdish state building project. “But we know that they have done since Kobane”, he noted, referring to the border town the YPG liberated from the Islamic State past year.
“The coalition and Turkey will work together on the long-term plan for seizing, holding, and governing Raqqa”, General Joe Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said following a four-and-a-half hour meeting with his Turkish counterpart, General Hulusi Akar.
Speaking in Ankara, Cavusoglu told reporters that he hoped the USA would keep its promise, but noted that Washington had also pledged earlier that Syrian Kurdish fighters would withdraw from the town of Manbij, which has not happened so far.
In Iraq, an official said Tuesday that Kurdish peshmerga fighters had seized the town of Bashiqa near Mosul, which would be a final step in securing the eastern approaches to Mosul. Their pincer movement on Raqqa is well-timed, coming just as Iraqi forces are besieging Mosul; if the two cities are liberated, ISIS will be largely obliterated.
The ground forces are being supported by airstrikes mounted by a US-led coalition, the source said.
Turkey entered Syria unilaterally in August to deny the YPG territorial gain and limit any expansion of Kurdish influence in northern Syria.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on yesterday reiterated the country’s opposition to the use of Syrian Kurdish fighters in the battle against the Islamic State group.
“Each time we liberate a village or hamlet, we take preventative measures such as digging ditches around sectors we’ve taken”, SDF spokesman Talal Sello told AFP.
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The SDF named the Raqqa mission Operation Euphrates Wrath, potentially a play on the name of Turkey’s intervention in Syria – Operation Euphrates Shield.
