US-BACKED KURDISH-Arab forces launched an offensive on the Islamic State group’s de facto Syrian capital Raqqa yesterday, upping pressure on the jihadists who are already battling Iraqi troops in Mosul.

The start of the assault by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) came as Iraqi forces fought inside Mosul for the third day running amid fierce jihadist resistance.

The two cities are the last major urban centres under IS control after the jihadists suffered a string of territorial losses in Iraq and Syria over the past year.

The US-led coalition battling IS is backing both assaults, hoping to deal a knockout blow to the self-styled “caliphate” it declared in mid-2014.

SDF commanders announced the start of the Raqqa operation in Ain Issa, some 50 kilometres north of the city.

“The major battle to liberate Raqqa and its surroundings has begun,” SDF spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed said.

Operation “Wrath of the Euphrates” involves some 30,000 fighters and began on Saturday night, Ahmed said.

SDF forces are advancing on three fronts, from Ain Issa and Tal Abyad to the north of Raqqa, and from the village of Makman to the east.

SDF spokesman Talal Sello told AFP forces would first seize areas around Raqqa before taking the city itself.

“The fight will not be easy, and will require accurate and careful operations because IS will defend its bastion knowing that the loss of Raqqa will mean it is finished in Syria,” Sello said.

SDF gains

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter echoed that sentiment.

“As in Mosul, the fight will not be easy and there is hard work ahead, but it is necessary to end the fiction of ISIL’s caliphate and disrupt the group’s ability to carry out terror attacks against the United States, our allies and our partners,” Carter said, using an alternative name for IS.

An AFP correspondent in Ain Issa yesterday saw dozens of SDF fighters heading for the front line.

SDF spokeswoman Ahmed said that 10 villages and several hamlets had been retaken.

Later the powerful Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) denied an IS report that 14 of its fighters were killed in a car bomb attack the Suluk area.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor reported only wounded in that attack.

Driving IS from Mosul and Raqqa has been the endgame since the US-led coalition launched air strikes against it in summer 2014.

- © AFP, 2016

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