US-backed Kurdish-Arab forces launched an offensive on Sunday on the militant Islamic State (IS) group’s de facto Syrian capital Raqa, upping pressure on the militants who are already battling Iraqi troops in Mosul.
The start of the assault by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) came as Iraqi forces fought inside Mosul for the third day running amid fierce resistance.
The two cities are the last major urban centres under IS control after the militants suffered a string of territorial losses in Iraq and Syria over the past year.
The US-led coalition battling IS is backing both assaults, hoping to deal a knockout blow to the self-styled “caliphate” the group declared in mid-2014.
SDF commanders announced the start of the operation against Raqa in Ain Issa, some 50 kilometres north of the city.
“The major battle to liberate Raqa and its surroundings has begun,” SDF spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed said.
Operation “Wrath of the Euphrates” involves some 30,000 fighters and began on Saturday night, Ahmed said.
SDF forces are advancing on three fronts, from Ain Issa and Tal Abyad to the north of Raqa, and from the village of Makman to the east.
SDF spokesman Talal Sello said the operation would proceed in two phases, first seizing areas around Raqa and isolating it, then taking the city itself.
“The fight will not be easy, and will require accurate and careful operations because IS will defend its bastion knowing that the loss of Raqa will mean it is finished in Syria,” Sello said.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter in Washington echoed that sentiment. “As in Mosul, the fight will not be easy and there is hard work ahead, but it is necessary to end the fiction of ISIL’s caliphate and disrupt the group’s ability to carry out terrorist attacks against the United States, our allies and our partners,” he said, using an alternative name for IS.
A correspondent in Ain Issa on Sunday saw dozens of SDF fighters heading on vehicles towards the front line.
Ahmed said in Beirut later that 10 villages and several hamlets had been retaken.
IS said it carried out a suicide car bombing in the Suluk area that killed 14 SDF fighters. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported wounded in the attack but no word of fatalities.
Driving the militants from Mosul and Raqa has been the endgame since the US-led coalition launched air strikes against IS in the summer of 2014.
The coalition has also provided training and deployed hundreds of advisers to work with Iraqi forces and select Syrian fighters, including the SDF.
Sello said the alliance had received new weapons from the coalition for the Raqa battle, including anti-tank missiles.
Another SDF source said 50 US military advisers would be involved in the operation, particularly to guide air strikes.
After it was seized by IS, Raqa saw some of the jihadists’ worst atrocities, from stoning and beheading to the trading of sex slaves.
