HAZIMA, Syria: The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said on Tuesday they were launching a new phase in their assault on the Islamic State group’s bastion Raqa, after advancing to the city’s outskirts. “We declare today the start of the great battle to liberate the city of Raqa, the so-called capital of terrorism and terrorists,” SDF spokesman Talal Sello told reporters in the village of Hazima, north of the city. With air support from a US-led coalition, the SDF has spent months sealing off the jihadists in Raqa, the heart of their territory in war-ravaged Syria. By Tuesday morning, the Arab-Kurdish alliance was attacking the city from the north, west and east, Sello said. “With the international coalition’s warplanes and the state-of-the-art weapons they provided to us, we will seize Raqa from Daesh,” Sello told Agence France-Presse, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Source: Manila Times June 06, 2017 09:00 UTC