Clashes raged around a key northern Syrian town on Tuesday after the Islamic State (IS) group launched a counterattack to fend off a US-backed advance near the extremists’ stronghold, Raqqa.
Backed by air power from an international coalition bombing the Islamic State, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been laying the groundwork for an assault on the heart of the extremists’ so-called “caliphate.”
A key part of the campaign is the battle for the Islamic State-held town of Tabqa on the Euphrates River, as well as the adjacent dam and military airport.
Photo: AFP
The SDF seized the Tabqa airbase late on Sunday and began moving north toward the town itself, but Islamic State fighters began pushing back on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
“The fighting is a result of IS launching a counteroffensive to exhaust the Syrian Democratic Forces around the Tabqa military airport,” observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
The SDF was working to “consolidate its positions” near the airport ahead of a final push for the town, he said.
The Islamic State launched the attack with a car bomb targeting SDF forces stationed near the airport, the alliance’s media arm said.
Fierce clashes broke out, but the SDF held back the attack, and managed to seize some ammunition and rocket stores from the militants, pictures published by the SDF showed.
SDF fighters were also bearing down on the Tabqa Dam after capturing its northern entrance on Friday last week from Islamic State fighters.
The fight around the structure has been backed by forces from the US-led coalition, with US-made armored vehicles bearing the markings of the US Marine Corps seen moving along a nearby road.
A correspondent at the dam on Tuesday said it was generally quiet around the dam itself, despite the occasional Islamic State-fired mortar that landed in SDF-controlled parts of the riverbank.
Airplanes could be heard above as SDF forces patrolled the northern entrance of the structure.
On Tuesday, coalition forces could be seen standing near military vehicles less than 2km from the dam, their mortar rounds casually stacked nearby.
After a brief pause in fighting on Monday to allow technicians to enter the dam complex, SDF fighters resumed their operations around the structure, spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed said.
“IS amassed its fighters and attacked our forces in the area, which forced us to respond and resume the operations to liberate the dam,” she said.
Earlier this year, the UN raised concern about the prospect of damage to the dam in fighting, warning that water levels — which put pressure on the structure — were already high.
On Tuesday, technicians accompanied by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent could be seen examining the dam to assess whether water levels had risen in recent days.
“The explosions and the clashes are threatening the dam, and we ask for all sides to distance themselves from it,” said Ismail Jassem, an engineer from the SDF-controlled Tishrin Dam in neighboring Aleppo Governorate.
“The water levels are acceptable now. We came to open up one of the gates to relieve the pressure,” he told reporters.
The Islamic State has accused the US-led coalition of bringing the dam to near-collapse with its airstrikes, and on Tuesday it said a US air raid killed top technicians at the dam.
“An American strike yesterday targeted the technical team at the Euphrates Dam, which killed the dam director, a technician and an electrical engineer,” the group told the Amaq news agency, which is linked to the militant organization.
The SDF launched its offensive for Raqqa in November last year, seizing about two-thirds of the surrounding province, the observatory said.
At their closest point, the forces are just 8km from Raqqa to the northeast, but they are mostly further away, between 18km and 29km from the city.
The observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground in Syria, said the Islamic State had deployed about 900 fighters from the city to various fronts in Raqqa Governorate.
“Fighting is raging on every front around the city of Raqqa, accompanied by nonstop airstrikes,” Abdel Rahman said.
UN-mediated talks between government and rebel representatives on Tuesday continued in Geneva, Switzerland, aimed at bringing an end to the war that has killed 320,000 people.
The lead negotiator for the main opposition High Negotiations Committee, Mohamad Sabra, said in an interview late on Monday that there could be “no real and viable political solution without the presence of the Americans.”
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