Wednesday 19 / March / 2025
Ain Issa (Syria): A US-backed alliance of Syrian armed groups said on Sunday it had launched an operation to retake the northern city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS in Syria.
The new offensive ratchets up pressure on the militant group at a critical moment.
A statement issued by the US-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab armed groups, said the campaign, called Euphrates Anger, had begun on Saturday evening. An SDF spokesman had earlier been quoted on Sunday saying it would start within hours.
"The general command of the Syria Democratic Forces announces the blessed start of its major military campaign to liberate the city of Raqqa," Jehan Sheikh Amad, an SDF spokeswoman, told a news conference in the Syrian town of Ain Issa, 50km (30 miles) north of Raqqa.
The United States would be coordinating air strikes with the SDF, which includes the powerful Kurdish YPG militia and has been the main partner on the ground in Syria for the US-led coalition against IS.
The SDF statement said the operation aimed to "isolate and then topple the capital of international terrorism", indicating an initial phase aimed to surround Raqqa before any move to seize it. No timeframe was given.
Planning for the Raqqa offensive has been complicated by factors including Turkish concerns about expanding Kurdish influence in northern Syria. Turkey has said Raqqa would be targeted in its own operation against IS in northern Syria, which it is waging with Syrian rebels.
But the SDF said on Thursday it had rejected any Turkish involvement in the Raqqa campaign. The Turkey-backed rebels fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner and the YPG and its allies are hostile to each other, and have clashed repeatedly.
Syrian Kurdish leaders have previously said YPG fighters should not join the force to drive IS from Raqqa. The SDF statement said Arab groups would be taking part in the operation.
The SDF called on Raqqa's civilians to avoid areas where IS militants are present and to go to "liberated territory".
An attack on Raqqa has been long expected, with US Secretary of Defence Ash Carter saying on October 25 that the battle to retake it would "overlap" with the assault on Mosul.
The top US military commander in Iraq, Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, said last month that the US-led coalition fighting IS wanted to move urgently to isolate Raqqa because of concerns about the group using the city as a base to plan and launch attacks against targets abroad.
France has also pushed for simultaneous action on both fronts. President Francois Hollande said last month there was evidence that IS fighters were fleeing to Raqqa, and that everything must be done to stop them regrouping there.
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Sunday that an offensive on Raqqa should be launched while the battle to push the group out of Mosul is under way.
"We have to go to Raqqa... it will automatically be local forces that will liberate Raqqa even if French forces, US forces, the coalition contribute with air strikes to dismantle Daesh (IS)," Le Drian told Europe 1 radio.
"Mosul-Raqqa can't be disassociated because IS and the territories it occupies span that area," he said.
Since it was formed in early 2015, the SDF has seized swathes of territory along the Syria-Turkey border from IS and pushed the militant group back to within 30 km (18 miles) of Raqqa.
