Raqa campaign in final stage
SDF says they have seized 90% of the city from IS
US-backed fighters have seized 90 percent of Raqa from the Islamic State group, a monitor said yesterday, as they announced they were in the "final stages" of capturing the jihadists' Syrian stronghold.
Under siege in the northern city for three months, IS is struggling to defend its one-time bastion under a barrage of air strikes by the US-led coalition battling the jihadists in Syria and Iraq.
"Because of the heavy coalition air strikes, IS withdrew from at least five key neighbourhoods over the past 48 hours," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"This allowed the Syrian Democratic Forces to control 90 percent of the city."
The SDF is an alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces the coalition is backing in Syria with air strikes, equipment and advisers.
In its statement yesterday, the SDF said it had helped hundreds of civilians escape the city in recent days.
"We will continue the campaign until we achieve our aim," Jihan Sheikh Ahmed, the SDF's spokeswoman for the Raqa offensive, told AFP.
IS pulled out of the north of the city and abandoned its grain silos and mills, Abdel Rahman said. It was now confined to the city centre, in government administrative buildings, the stadium and tunnels.
The SDF said its forces had mounted a "surprise attack" on IS in the north of the city. "We consider this the final stages of the Wrath of the Euphrates campaign, which is nearing its end," a statement said.
IS seized Raqa in early 2014, transforming the city into the de facto Syrian capital of the "caliphate" it declared after taking control of large parts of Syria and Iraq.
It quickly became synonomous with the group's most gruesome atrocities, including public beheadings, and IS is thought to have used the city to plan attacks abroad.