US-backed force opens new front against ISIL in west Raqqa

Syrian Democratic Forces breach extremists' Syrian stronghold from the east just days after attacking from the west.

Smoke rises from buildings in the Al Meshleb neighbourhood of Raqqa on June 7, 2017, two days after the Syrian Democratic Forces entered ISIL’s Syrian bastion from the east. Delil Souleiman / AFP

Beirut // US-backed Syrian fighters broke into western Raqqa on Saturday, opening up a second front against ISIL in its stronghold in northern Syria.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) entered the city for the first time last week from the east, backed by US-led coalition air strikes, and captured the Al Meshleb neighbourhood.

SDF fighters entered and captured the western half of Al Sabahiya neighbourhood and were reinforcing their positions there, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

“They then advanced north to the adjacent district of Al Romaniya and are fighting ISIL there,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

The SDF said it was locked in “fierce fighting” inside Al Romaniya.

Held by ISIL since 2014, Raqqa has been a key hub for the extremist group’s self-declared “caliphate” in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

The SDF, which was formed in 2015, launched its campaign to capture Raqqa in November and chipped away at ISIL territory around the city’s north, west, and east. But the force has struggled to advance from the city’s north, where IS holds a military complex known as Division 17.

“ISIL reinforced the northern approach to Raqqa much more, thinking that’s how the SDF would try to advance on the city,” Mr Abdel Rahman said.

“The western and eastern entrances to the city were much less fortified,” he said.

In Iraq, where ISIL has been driven from all but a few districts in the northern city of Mosul, its last urban stronghold, the group launched an attack on a town that left more than 30 military and civilians dead and 40 more wounded.

About a dozen ISIL fighters were also killed in the attack on Shirqat, south of Mosul, which began in the early hours of Saturday and ended around midday, security sources said.

ISIL lost Shirqat to US-backed Iraqi government forces and tribal fighters last year. Its fall paved the way for the offensive on Mosul, the militants’ de facto capital in Iraq.

All of Mosul has been retaken by Iraqi government forces except an enclave by the western bank of the Tigris river.

The militants continue to control pockets south and west of Mosul, as well as swathes of territory near the border with Syria.

* Agence France-Presse and Reuters