IS cornered in Syria, Iraq
US-backed forces have penetrated the heavily fortified heart of jihadist bastion Raqa for the first time, in a key milestone in the war against the Islamic State group in Syria.
Air strikes by the US-led coalition battling IS punched two holes in the mediaeval wall surrounding Raqa's Old City, allowing fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces to breach the jihadists' defences, Washington and the SDF said yesterday.
The landmark advance in IS's notorious Syria bastion -- the culmination of a nearly eight-month campaign -- comes as the jihadists face an expected defeat within days in Iraq's second city Mosul, the other pivot of the cross-border "caliphate" they declared in 2014.
Coalition officials said a few hundred diehard jihadists were making a desperate last stand in just one square kilometre (less than half a square mile) of Mosul's Old City.
In neighbouring Syria, US-backed forces -- including the SDF and Arab fighters from the Syrian Elite Forces -- broke into Raqa's Old City.
"There have been fierce clashes (in the Old City) since dawn today, with 200 of our fighters mobilising to the area," Syrian Elite Forces spokesman Mohammad Khaled Shaker told AFP.
The SDF said coalition warplanes opened up two breaches in the 2.5 kilometre (one and a half mile) Rafiqah Wall around the Old City, enabling its fighters to evade explosives laid by IS.
"Daesh (IS) have used this archaeological wall to launch attacks, and planted bombs and mines in its gates to hinder the advance of SDF forces," the alliance said.
The coalition estimates that some 2,500 IS jihadists are defending Raqa.
That is far more than the 200 or so diehard IS fighters, most of them foreign, that Iraqi commanders believe are holed up in the Old City of Mosul.
Iraqi forces were moving in on the last IS-controlled neighbourhoods of the Old City from all sides yesterday, commanders said, adding that they expected to announce victory in as few as two days.
"From the early morning, we were able to gain an important foothold in these neighbourhoods," Staff Brigadier General Haidar al-Obeidi, a commander in the elite Counter-Terrorism Service, told AFP.
"In the next two days, we will announce the complete liberation of the Old City, and therefore... the city of Mosul."
Iraqi forces have been closing in on Mosul's Old City for months, but its maze of narrow alleyways combined with a large civilian population has made for an extremely difficult fight.
Iraqi forces are facing a rising number of suicide attacks, including some by female bombers, in the final stages of the more than eight-month-long campaign, commanders said.
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