Senior US military officials have met their Turkish counterparts in Ankara to seek approval for the launch of a largely Kurdish-led move to isolate Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa. Ahmed said the operation – called Wrath of the Euphrates – would involve about 30,000 fighters and had begun on Saturday night. She said the operation aimed to free Raqqa from “the forces of global, obscurantist terrorism represented by Daesh [Isis] that took it for their presumed capital”. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) north of Raqqa in Syria. “We have to go to Raqqa … it will automatically be local forces that will liberate Raqqa even if French forces, US forces, the coalition contribute with airstrikes to dismantle Daesh,” Le Drian told Europe 1 radio.

Source: The Guardian November 06, 2016 12:47 UTC