A final assault on Daesh’s last line of defence in its former Syrian capital Raqqa should begin on Sunday night, a field commander for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by a US-led coalition, said on Sunday.
The assault on militants in the centre of Raqqa would focus on the area around the stadium and would attempt to surround it, the field commander, Ardal Raqqa, told Reuters in a western area of the city.
For three years Raqqa was the de facto Syrian capital of Daesh’s self-declared caliphate, a centre of operations where it oversaw the management of its vast swathes of eastern, central and northern Syria and planned attacks abroad.
Now it is hemmed into a small area in the city centre that includes the stadium, the National Hospital and a roundabout where Daesh once displayed the heads of its enemies.
Commanders directing the battle have warned that Daesh fighters have taken civilian hostages and are using sniper fire, booby traps and tunnels to slow the SDF advance.
The SDF, spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG militia, began its campaign to isolate Raqqa early this year, pushing along several fronts to enclose the city against the Euphrates backed by coalition air strikes and special forces.
Its attack on the city itself started in June and the fighting left much of Raqqa in ruins, as intense air strikes and street-to-street battles devastated buildings.
The spokeswoman for the SDF campaign in Raqqa, Jihan Sheikh Ahmad, said in a statement on a website for the campaign that it would announce the liberation of Raqqa “in the coming few days”.
ISIS has lost swathes of territory to the SDF and to a rival offensive by Syria’s army and allied forces this year, and has fallen back on the fertile Euphrates valley area downstream of Raqqa.
In Deir al-Zor province, Syrian regime army and its allies have encircled ISIS in the city of Mayadin, military source told Reuters on Sunday.
Mayadin is one of the last strongholds of ISIS as it falls back upon the fertile area downstream of Deir al-Zor in the Euphrates valley and launches counter attacks in the central desert after losing swathes of territory this year.
"Units of our armed forces with the allied forces continue their advance on a number of fronts and axes in Deir al-Zor and its countryside... and encircle Daesh terrorists in the city of al-Mayadin," the military source said.
The army and its allies reached Deir al-Zor in September after a months-long offensive across the Syria desert, and have in recent weeks pushed down the Euphrates towards al-Mayadin.
However, counter attacks by Daesh in the central desert region have put pressure on the main supply road to Deir al-Zor from western Syria.
Syrian President Bashar Assad is backed in the war by Russia, Iran and Shiite militias including Lebanon's Hezbollah, and its campaign against Daesh has mostly been on the west bank of the river.
SDF is also supporting a rival campaign against the extremists, mostly on the east bank, where it is close to recapturing Raqqa, and has also advanced downstream to hold areas opposite Deir al-Zor.
U.S. officials have previously said that Daesh had relocated some of its diminished command and propaganda structures to al-Mayadin as it was forced from territory elsewhere. (With Reuters, Middle East Monitor)
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