Tabqa, Syria // An alliance of US-backed Syrian fighters said on Friday it could launch an assault on ISIL’s Syrian bastion of Raqqa as soon as next month with new weapons and armoured vehicles promised by Washington.
Commanders of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the impending offensive in Tabqa, which the alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters captured from ISIL on Wednesday along with the nearby dam.
“The attack on Raqqa will take place in the beginning of the summer,” SDF commander Rojda Felat said.
She later specified that it would probably start in June based on “military and tactical considerations”.
The SDF fight for Raqqa – dubbed Operation Wrath of the Euphrates – has already seen the alliance capture large swathes of the surrounding province with help from the US-led coalition bombing ISIL in Iraq and Syria.
The SDF has been working to tighten the noose around Raqqa before a final assault. At their closest point, the US-backed forces are just eight kilometres from the city. They are backed by coalition air strikes, American special forces advisers and even a US Marines artillery battery.
SDF deputy head Qahraman Hassan said his forces would receive “special weapons and armoured vehicles” to enter the city, after US president Donald Trump changed US policy to allow arms deliveries to the Syrian Kurdish component of the alliance – the People Protection Units, or YPG.
Cmdr Hassan said no arms had been delivered yet, but he believed “this support will arrive soon”.
The YPG is seen by the US as an indispensable ally in the fight against ISIL but considered a “terrorist group” by Turkey.
A US defence official said earlier this week that the equipment would include small arms, ammunition, machine guns, armoured vehicles and bulldozers.
The US decision to equip the SDF with weapons was a snub to Turkey, which does not want the Kurdish-led force to take Raqqa and has offered its own troops instead. But the SDF made clear it is capable enough with the forces and support it already has.
“We do not want any other forces to participate with us,” said an SDF commander who gave his name as Abdelqader.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has promised to convince Mr Trump to reverse his administration’s decision to arm the YPG when the two leaders meet at the White House next week.
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
