8 family members killed in Raqqa as Kurdish-led forces press gains

(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 8 family members killed Thursday in the U.S.-led airstrikes on ISIS-held Raqqa neighborhoods as Kurdish-led forces press rapid gains inside the capital of the Islamic State, local monitoring group said

Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said most of the U.S. strikes were civilians and family members as the death toll of the Coalition airstrikes reached 900 in four months.

Lasy July, more than 280 civilians killed by the U.S airstrikes amid media blackout for the daily killing of residents of Raqqa who find themselves trapped in the city with no humanitarian corridors, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces seized full control of southern neighborhoods of Raqqa, tightening the noose of Islamic State fighters.

Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said the SDF took Hisham Ibn Abdul Malek neighborhood and most of bundlings adjacent to Euphrates River.

By taking the southern districts, the islamic State has lost its last remaining path to the Euphrates River which is to the south of the city.

SDF fighters have also pressed gain in the western neighborhoods, the monitor said.

On Monday, the World Health Organization said there were critical shortages of medical supplies in Raqqa, where it estimated up to 50,000 civilians remained. Separately, Medecins Sans Frontieres said many sick and wounded people were trapped.

The SDF launched its U.S.-backed campaign to seize Raqqa in early June. The assault on Islamic State's de facto capital in Syria overlapped with the campaign to drive IS from the Iraqi city of Mosul, where IS was defeated last month.

The Kurdish official told Reuters SDF fighters advancing from the east and the west remain separated by a few streets where fighting continued.

Meanwhile, ISIS has called on young men to take up arms in eastern Syria.

In a statement distributed Thursday in Deir Al-Zor province that borders Iraq, Daesh called on all men between 20 and 30 who are able to fight to head to mobilization offices within a week, AP reported.

The call comes as the extremists have lost large parts of areas they controlled in Iraq and Syria, where they declared a caliphate in 2014.