The campaign against the city, ISIL’s Syrian base of operations, is gathering pace as Iraqi forces press ahead with their efforts to recapture Mosul, ISIL’s base in Iraq. The overlapping campaigns threaten to deal the extremists a double blow.
The Raqqa campaign has received a boost in recent days with the deployment of a US Marines artillery unit, adding to the several hundred American special forces already in Syria supporting the operation backed by air strikes from the US-led coalition.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the main US partner in Syria, this week cut the road from Raqqa to ISIL’s stronghold in Deir Al-Zor — the last main road out of Raqqa — and declared it would reach the city limits within a few weeks.
Nato member Turkey is deeply concerned by the influential role of the Kurdish YPG militia in the SDF, and is pressing Washington to take part in the operation itself. However, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in Moscow on Friday after talks with Vladimir Putin that Turkey was co-operating entirely with Russia’s military over Syria, and also wants to work with the US-led coalition in targeting Manbij.
But the SDF made clear its determination to press ahead.
“The number of our forces is now increasing, particularly from among the people of the area, and we have enough strength to liberate Raqqa with support from the coalition forces,” spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed said. “We have information that the enemy is moving part of its leadership outside the city, as it is also digging tunnels under the ground. We expect they will fortify the city and the terrorist group will depend on street warfare.”
The SDF, which includes Arab groups allied to the YPG, says it ruled out any Turkish role during meetings with American officials last month. Turkey says no decision had been made yet on who would carry out the final assault while the US-led coalition said a possible Turkish role remained up for discussion.
Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought an insurgency against the Turkish government for decades. The YPG controls swathes of northern Syria, where it has battled ISIL for several years.
ISIL is also battling the Russian-backed Syrian army in northern Syria and, in separate campaigns, the Turkish army and Free Syrian Army rebel groups which are backed by Turkey.
The extremists have withdrawn from parts of northern Syria in the last few weeks, a sign of the pressure they are under in both the Syrian and Iraqi halves of their self-declared “caliphate”.
US air force Colonel John Dorrian, spokesman for the US-led coalition, said the coalition was working on simultaneous or overlapping operations in Syria and Iraq. “Conducting operations to isolate and liberate Raqqa while also working to liberate Mosul presents the enemy with more dilemmas than their command and control capabilities can manage,” he said.
* Reuters
