On the road to Syria’s largest dam, US-backed fighters battle ISIL

Meanwhile, the meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani in Moscow is being closely watched for signs on their next moves in Syria.

Still image taken from drone footage posted online on March 27, 2017 by the Aamaq News Agency, a media arm of ISIL, showing the Tabqa Dam in Raqqa, Syria. Aamaq News Agency via AP

TABQA DAM, SYRIA // The road to the Tabqa dam in northern Syria is strewn with evidence of the clashes between a US-backed alliance of fighters and ISIL.

Bits of burned vehicles and the casings of ammunition litter the roadside leading into the dam complex, which the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) entered on Friday.

Two overturned tanks lie in the rubble and dirt berms along the roadside, and the bodies of several alleged ISIL fighters lie in the shallow water of a canal.

The group still controls the main dam itself, Syria’s largest, which straddles the Euphrates River.

But fighters from the Kurdish-Arab SDF alliance who were airlifted behind ISIL lines last week by US forces entered the complex from the north on Friday and seized part of it.

The battle for the dam has sparked concern about its integrity, with fears that any damage to it could cause its failure and “catastrophic” flooding.

The facility went out of service over the weekend, a technical source at the dam said, after damage to its power station.

“We tried to preserve the dam as much as possible so that it was not damaged,” SDF commander Rojda Felat said.

“We think Daesh has laid explosives on it to prevent our advance,” she added.

Signs of ISIL control are everywhere, starting with a placard cautioning that the maximum load allowed on the dam is 50 tonnes, and warning that any additional weight will incur a fine.

Elsewhere, a sign in white Arabic script on a black background reads: “The Quran is our constitution, Mohammed is our leader, and jihad is our path.”

The battle for the dam is part of the SDF’s preparations for a larger assault on the extremist group’s de facto Syrian capital Raqqa, which lies around 55 kilometres east of Tabqa.

The alliance, backed by the US-led coalition fighting ISIL in Iraq and Syria, is aiming to effectively encircle Raqqa and captured the nearby Tabqa military airport on Sunday.

The coalition has launched air strikes in support of the operation, and Ms Felat said its forces were stepping up their role on the ground.

“This time, coalition forces took part in greater force than previous occasions with new tactics like the airlift, crossing the river, and artillery fire,” she said.

As fears over the dam’s integrity rose, the SDF announced on Monday it was pausing operations for four hours to allow engineers to enter the facility.

A source at the dam said the team needed more time to carry out inspections and repairs.

“It will take two or three days to assess and repair the damage, which was a result of the bombardment of the electrical distribution room,” he said.

“The teams will try to find alternatives to the power station to make the dam functional again,” he said.

Meanwhile, all eyes are on Russia and Iran as a meeting between their leaders is closely watched for signs on their next moves in Syria.

Russian president Vladimir Putin was on Tuesday hosting his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani for talks in Moscow.

Mr Rouhani’s first official visit to Russia comes as the two Syrian regime supporters push for ways to end the six-year conflict, having done much to marginalise US influence in peace talks.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said ahead of the trip that the leaders would discuss “regional issues especially the Syrian crisis, solutions to end it quickly”, as well as ways to counter “terrorism and extremism”.

The visit also comes as major splits emerge between the countries, the primary allies of the Syrian regime, over the role of that rebel backer Turkey should play in the country.

Moscow has formed an unlikely alliance with Ankara since 2016, envisioning Turkey as being part of a solution to the Syrian conflict.

But Iran has been more wary about Turkey’s involvement in efforts to end hostilities, with tensions mounting as Moscow and Ankara left Tehran out of a truce they brokered in December.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Moscow was striving to bolster its relations with Tehran, which he said had “very solid potential”.

* Agence France-Presse