A major battle to liberate the Islamic State (IS) group’s stronghold of Raqqa in northern Syria is looming, with US officials looking to build on momentum from victories on the battlefields of Mosul in Iraq.
The Pentagon has drawn up a secret plan to do that, likely leaning on local allies with stepped-up US support.
Syrian government forces, Turkish troops and their Syrian militia allies, and US-backed Kurdish forces all have their eye on Raqqa. Each vehemently rejects letting the others capture the city and would likely react in anger should the US support the others, and it is not clear that any has the resources to take the city on its own.
“Raqqa is more of an abstract goal. Everyone wants it in principle, but no one is willing to commit the resources and bear the risks necessary,” said Faysal Itani, an analyst at the Washington-based Atlantic Council.
The fall of Raqqa, the Islamic State group’s de facto capital and largest remaining stronghold, would be the biggest defeat for the militants in Syria since they captured the northern city on the banks of the Euphrates River in January 2014.
US President Donald Trump has vowed to “obliterate” the group.
“We will work with our allies, including our friends and allies in the Muslim world, to extinguish this vile enemy from our planet,” he told the US Congress on Tuesday.
The top US commander in the campaign against the IS, US Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, has said he believes Raqqa and Mosul will be taken within six months.
So far, the offensive on Mosul has been under way four months, with only half the city captured from the militants in ferocious street-to-street urban combat — and that is using a relatively intensively trained and united military, backed by heavy US firepower and commandos on the ground — a contrast to the comparatively undisciplined and fragmented forces the US has to choose from as allies in Syria.
In Syria, US-backed predominantly Kurdish fighters known as the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) remain Trump’s best bet. Aided by US-led coalition airstrikes and about 500 US special forces troops deployed in an advisory role, the force has been marching toward Raqqa since November last year. Closing in on the city from different directions, it is now stationed about 8km north of the city.
However, further aid to the rag-tag group raises sensitive questions over how to deal with Turkey, a NATO ally with much at stake in Syria.
Turkey considers the main Kurdish militia in Syria — known as the YPG, and an affiliate of the US-backed SDF — a terrorist organization, and has vowed to work with Syrian opposition fighters known as the Free Syrian Army to liberate Raqqa.
Syrians are sharply divided over who should enter the city. Many opposition supporters consider the SDF, which maintains a tacit non-aggression pact with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, to be a hostile group.
There are also fears of tensions if Raqqa, home to an about 200,000 mainly Arab population, is taken by the SDF, a coalition of Kurdish, Arab and Christian fighters.
“Let us be frank that any force that will liberate Raqqa other than the Free Syrian Army is going to be a new occupation force with different flags and banners,” said Mohammed Khodor of Sound and Picture Organization, which tracks atrocities by the IS in Iraq and Syria.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim was more blunt, saying that if the SDF enters Raqqa, it will hurt relations between Ankara and Washington.
“We have said that a terror organization cannot be used against another terror organization,” the Turkish prime minister told the state-run Anadolu news agency.
The Kurds reject that notion and insist that only forces fighting under the SDF banner will liberate Raqqa.
“Turkey is an occupation force and has no legitimate right to enter Raqqa,” SDF spokeswoman Cihan Sheikh Ehmed said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese