US-backed forces push Daesh in Raqqa campaign — officials

BEIRUT — US-supported forces fighting the Daesh terror group in Syria advanced to within 2 km of a key stronghold near the terrorist group's de facto capital of Raqqa on Tuesday, and a counterattack by the militants was repulsed, officials said.

The multi-phased campaign by the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by air strikes and military advisers from a US-led coalition, ultimately aims to oust Daesh from Raqqa. Daesh is also losing ground to US-backed offensives in Iraq.

Officials have given different estimates for how long the campaign will take, and the assault on Raqqa itself appears to have been delayed, after one high-ranking military official said it would begin at the start of April.

Meanwhile the immediate goal is to capture the city of Tabaqa, some 40 km west of Raqqa, and a nearby dam on the Euphrates River, an official for the Raqqa campaign said.

"For now, the target in front of our eyes is the city of Tabaqa, and the dam," Gharib Rasho, a media official for the campaign, told Reuters.

He said the SDF had taken control of around 60 per cent of the dam, after capturing its northern entrance last month. The SDF is made up of Syrian Arab and Kurdish forces, including a large contingent from the powerful Kurdish YPG militia.

On Tuesday, SDF forces thwarted a Daesh counterattack near Tabaqa and advanced to within 2 km of the city from the east, an SDF statement said.

Rasho said Daesh had been trying to break a siege the SDF had imposed on Tabaqa by attacking both from inside and from areas to its south which the radical group still holds.

It is unclear how many Daesh insurgents remain in Tabaqa, but Rasho said they were "few", based on the estimates of residents fleeing the city.

Thousands of residents have left in recent weeks, though tens of thousands are thought to remain in Tabaqa.

The militants were using car bombs, mortar fire and suicide attackers — methods similar to those the extremists have employed to defend their urban bastion of Mosul in Iraq, he said.

Weeks or months?

 Launched in November, the SDF offensive aims initially to isolate Raqqa, Daesh’s main urban base in Syria. Forces have advanced on the city from the north, east and west. Encircling and capturing Tabaqa is a major part of the campaign as the city and dam comprise a strategic base for Daesh.

The focus on Tabaqa does not rule out a simultaneous assault on Raqqa, campaign officials have said.

But that assault appears already to have been delayed as Daesh resistance keeps forces busy around Tabaqa.

The head of the YPG said last month the Raqqa assault would begin at the start of April, and would take no more than a few weeks. The commander of the Raqqa operation, also a YPG official, later said the offensive to capture the city would likely last several months.

US coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian said Washington's partners on the ground would choose when to move in on Raqqa. "Ultimately we are isolating Raqqa and we're going to, at a time of our partner's choosing, move in and liberate that city from Daesh,” he said in a statement.

"This is an important task. It's the equivalent in Syria of what's being done to eliminate the enemy in Mosul."

 The parallel US-backed Iraqi offensive to drive Daesh out of Mosul has also taken longer than the Iraqi government predicted. Fighting there rages on between the armed forces and extremists who are holed up in its old city.