Page 38 - 072817

Groton Daily Independent
Friday, July 28, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 028 ~ 38 of 54
slowed due to stiff resistance and large amounts of explosives planted by the extremists, a spokeswoman for the ghters and monitors said.
The assault on Raqqa by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led ghting coalition, began June 6, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and U.S. troops advising the local forces.
Since then, the SDF has made steady advances from the eastern and western sides of the city, reaching the walled old quarter.
The fall of Raqqa, the extremist group’s self-proclaimed capital, would be a huge loss for IS, which earlier this month lost the Iraqi city of Mosul. But much tougher ghting still lies ahead.
Army Col. Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition ghting the Islamic State group, said 45 percent of Raqqa was under the control of the SDF.
In a series of tweets, he said the SDF cleared about 9 square miles of terrain this past week ghting against “stiff, sporadic resistance” from IS militants entrenched in Raqqa.
Commanders on the western Raqqa front line said there were about 800 meters left before SDF forces moving from east and west would connect — tightening the noose on IS.
The battle eld Thursday was busy with hundreds of SDF ghters taking cover inside destroyed buildings less than 500 meters from IS combatants. SDF troops lobbed dozens of mortar shells at the militants, who sent out armed drones above the SDF forces
Meanwhile, senior U.N. humanitarian of cial Ursula Mueller told the U.N. Security Council by video from Jordan on Thursday that an estimated 20,000 to 50,000 people remained in Raqqa.
She said the city was encircled and “there is no way for them to get out.”
Since April 1, over 200,000 people have ed their homes in the area around Raqqa, she said. The g- ure includes more than 30,000 displaced just this month as U.S.-backed Syrian ghters try to oust the extremists.
Nisreen Abdullah, the Kurdish spokeswoman, told The Associated Press that the pace of the advance into Raqqa had slowed because of huge amounts of explosives laid by IS ghters.
As the extremists become more surrounded, they have increased their suicide attacks on ghters of the SDF, she added.
“Raqqa has become a booby-trapped city and this shows their (IS’) weakness,” said Abdullah, of the Women’s Protection Units or YPJ, speaking from northern Syria. “They are also using civilians as human shields and this is slowing the push as well.”
She said the Syrian Democratic Forces, which includes the Kurdish YPJ women ghters, now controls 45 percent of Raqqa. She added that since the offensive began, SDF ghters have fully captured eight neighborhoods.
Plumes of smoke could be seen behind buildings in Raqqa a day earlier as the coalition pounded IS targets in the city. Syrian children looked on as U.S. armored vehicles drove by. One American soldier on a vehicle made the victory sign.
Mustafa Bali, who heads the SDF media center, con rmed on Thursday that the group now has half of Raqqa and said the most important areas liberated in the past four days were the Nazlet Shehadeh and Panorama Square neighborhoods — both on the southwestern part of the city.
But he said there are IS counterattacks, militant sleeper cells and tunnels in the area.
“It was not easy, we have casualties and martyrs,” he said, adding that the ghting was ongoing.
In the eastern front, where SDF forces breached IS defenses on the edge of the old city about a month
ago, ghters have now reached the old citadel, an SDF commander in charge of one sector in the front told the AP.
“As we move forward we nd a tunnel every 100 meters,” Jihad Khabat said. He said the enemy, “be- sieged and in distress,” hides in deep and long tunnels under the city, from where they can hit Syrian ghters in daily counterattacks.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said SDF ghters control half of Raqqa. The attacks on the city have claimed many casualties among the tens of thousands of civilians who are