QAMISHLI/WASHINGTON: US-backed fighters fought fierce battles Thursday as they tried to push further into Daesh’s Syrian bastion Raqqa, two days after finally entering the northern city.
Meanwhile, a drone suspected of belonging to forces supporting President Bashar Assad’s regime fired on coalition troops in southeastern Syria before they shot it down, an official said Thursday.
No coalition forces were hurt in the exchanges with the drone, coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon told Pentagon reporters in a video-conference from Baghdad.
Dillon said the troops also fired at two pro-regime vehicles that were “assessed to be a threat” near At-Tanf in Syria.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters began the battle for the city earlier this week after seven months of fighting to surround the militant stronghold.
On Wednesday, an AFP journalist entered the city with SDF fighters and witnessed heavy clashes in the Al-Meshleb neighborhood, with Daesh firing multiple mortar rounds toward the advancing forces.
He said part of the neighborhood was under SDF control but US-led coalition planes were still carrying out strikes against Daesh militants elsewhere in the district, one of the largest in Raqqa.
SDF fighters were armed mostly with light weapons including Kalashnikovs and were also returning mortar fire on Daesh positions.
They were trying to conceal their vehicles from attack by armed drones dispatched by Daesh militants, a favored technique of the militant group in its battles in Syria and Iraq.
The SDF did not allow journalists to return to the city on Thursday but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fierce fighting was continuing in Al-Meshleb.
The Britain-based monitoring group said the SDF now controlled around two-thirds of the district and was some 400 meters from the neighboring Al-Senaa district.
Daesh “has snipers monitoring Al-Meshleb neighborhood and has laid mines extensively throughout it,” the Observatory said.
The group said the district had been emptied of its civilian population before the SDF entered and Daesh had dug defensive trenches and tunnels in the area in a bid to hold off attacking forces.
Fighting was also continuing on the western outskirts of the city, the monitor said, adding that US special forces were actively participating in battles on several fronts.
Around 500 US military personnel, not all of them special forces, are believed to be participating in the battle for Raqqa.
On Wednesday, an AFP correspondent saw coalition armored vehicles parked among olive trees in the desert east of Raqqa, covered with camouflage fabric.
SDF male and female commanders, dressed in fatigues and sporting colorful printed scarves wrapped around their heads, pored over maps on tablet devices to pinpoint targets.
Captured by the militants in 2014, Raqqa has become synonymous with Daesh atrocities including beheadings and public displays of bodies, and also emerged as a hub for planning attacks abroad.
An estimated 300,000 civilians were believed to have been living under Daesh rule in Raqqa, including 80,000 displaced from other parts of Syria.
But thousands have fled in recent months and the UN humanitarian office estimates about 160,000 people remain in the city.
An activist from the anti-Daesh Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently group told AFP on Wednesday that conditions in the city were deteriorating, describing continuous bombardment and water and electricity outages. Civilians who have escaped have described harrowing journeys and being targeted by Daesh militants as they fled.
The International Rescue Committee said earlier this week it was “deeply concerned for the safety of civilians in Raqqa,” noting a drop in the numbers fleeing the city in the past week.
That decrease could indicate Daesh intends to use remaining civilians “as human shields,” the aid group said.
Civilians trapped in Raqqa also face the risk of heavy coalition air strikes.
The number of reported civilian casualties in the coalition’s strikes has swelled as the SDF offensive has intensified.
Along with Mosul in Iraq, Raqqa was one of the twin pivots of the self-styled “caliphate” that Daesh declared nearly three years ago.
Iraqi forces backed by the coalition are battling Daesh in Mosul too. The militants there are now confined to a few neighborhoods around the Old City. The Syrian military has so far been absent from the battle for Raqqa, though state news agency SANA said Thursday that the air force had targeted Daesh positions in the west of Raqqa province.
The Observatory said the strikes were carried out by Syria’s ally Russia.
Elsewhere in Syria, there has been a sharp reduction in fighting in the past month after pro-opposition Turkey and Russia and fellow regime backer Iran brokered a deal to set up safe zones in four key battlegrounds.
Fierce clashes as US-backed force battles Daesh in Raqqa
Fierce clashes as US-backed force battles Daesh in Raqqa
