US-backed force gains ground on IS in Syria's Raqa

RAQA - 8 June 2017: U.S.-backed fighters gained ground against the Islamic State group in the streets of Raqa on Wednesday, a day after their months-long offensive finally broke into the jihadists' Syrian bastion.

The Syrian Democratic Forces militia has spent seven months advancing on the city, with backing from the US-led coalition bombing IS in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

Captured by the jihadists in 2014, Raqa became synonymous with IS atrocities including beheadings and public displays of bodies, and also emerged as a hub for planning attacks abroad.

The SDF's Arab and Kurdish fighters captured the eastern Al-Meshleb district of the city early on Wednesday, after finally entering the neighbourhood the previous day.

On Wednesday, heavy IS fire onto SDF positions inside Al-Meshleb sent smoke rising into the air, an AFP correspondent who entered the city said.

The SDF tried to conceal their vehicles from the jihadists' armed drones, and had placed tyres on the road going into Raqa in a bid to stop IS sending car bombs towards their fighters.

"Fierce clashes are ongoing in Raqa between our forces and Daesh," an SDF official said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

"They have put a lot of mines in the neighborhoods but we are advancing" backed by air strikes, the official said.

Outside the city limits, SDF commanders worked with tablet devices to pinpoint targets.

Armoured vehicles, loaded with heavy weapons and covered with camouflage fabric, were parked between olive trees.

The command of "Operation Wrath of the Euphrates" said earlier the SDF captured both Al-Meshleb and the Harqal citadel to the west of the city.

The citadel sits on a hilltop roughly two kilometres (just over a mile) from the city limits.

Fighting was also raging in a military complex around two kilometres north of the city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

An activist with the Raqa is Being Slaughtered Silently group said people in the city described non-stop bombardment.

"The bombing has been going for two days and hasn't stopped for more than an hour, it's air strikes, artillery fire and sometimes rockets," Abu Mohamed told AFP.

He said shops were barely open and there were power and water cuts.

The Britain-based Observatory said the US-led coalition had carried out heavy bombing raids in support of the advance.

One of Tuesday's air strikes inside the city killed eight civilians, including three children, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Reported civilian casualties in coalition air strikes have swelled as the SDF has ramped up its offensive.

Late on Monday, at least 21 civilians were killed in a coalition strike as they tried to escape Raqa by dinghy on the Euphrates River, the Observatory said.

An estimated 300,000 civilians were believed to have been living under IS rule in Raqa, including 80,000 displaced from other parts of Syria.

But thousands have fled in recent months, and the UN humanitarian office on Tuesday estimated about 160,000 people remained in the city.

The International Rescue Committee said it was "deeply concerned for the safety of civilians in Raqa" after a drop in numbers fleeing the city in the past week.

That decrease could indicate IS intends to use remaining civilians "as human shields," the aid group said.

The SDF has scored a series of victories since launching its operation to take Raqa in November and on Tuesday announced the battle for Raqa itself had begun.

Along with Mosul in Iraq, Raqa was one of the twin pivots of the self-styled Islamic "caliphate" that IS declared nearly three years ago.

US-backed forces are battling IS in Mosul too and have now confined the jihadists to a few neighbourhoods around the Old City.

Coalition commander Lieutenant General Steve Townsend said defeating IS in Raqa would "deliver a decisive blow to the idea of ISIS as a physical caliphate".

The coalition began striking IS jihadists in Iraq in August 2014 and expanded its operations to Syria the following month.

In recent weeks, it has also targeted pro-government forces near Syria's border with Jordan.

The coalition said Tuesday it had hit a regime convoy that was nearing the Al-Tanaf garrison, used by US and British troops to train Syrian rebels to fight IS.

The coalition said the contingent was "well advanced" into the 34-mile (55-kilometre) de-confliction zone, where any intrusion is considered hostile.

The Observatory said at least 17 pro-regime troops were killed in the strike.

It was the second time in less than a month that the coalition had attacked pro-regime forces near to the garrison, and government ally Russia slammed the strike as a "act of aggression."

Syria's foreign ministry Wednesday accused Washington of "leading a coalition that practices terrorism," and warned of "the dangers of escalation".

The Syrian army is eager to push east towards the Jordanian and Iraqi borders where some of the country's main oilfields lie before the area can be seized from IS by the SDF or Western-backed rebels.