WASHINGTON: US-backed forces in Syria have breached the wall surrounding the Old City of Raqqa as they try to retake the city from the Daesh group, the US Central Command said Monday night.
“Coalition forces supported the SDF advance into the most heavily fortified portion of Raqqa by opening two small gaps in the Rafiqah Wall that surrounds the Old City,” Centcom said in a statement, referring to the Syrian Democratic Forces.
US-backed fighters pierced jihadist-held Raqqa from the south for the first time on Sunday, crossing the Euphrates River to enter a new part of the Syrian city, a monitor said.
The Syrian Democratic Forces have spent months closing in on the Daesh group’s bastion Raqqa and entered the city’s east and west for the first time last month.
In the fighting at the wall, US Central Command said the SDF fighters faced heavy resistance from Daesh fighters, who used the wall as a combat position and planted mines and improvised explosive devices against advancing US-backed soldiers.
“Conducting targeted strikes on two small portions of the wall allowed coalition and partner forces to breach the Old City at a locations of their choosing, denied ISIS the ability to use pre-positioned mines, IED and VBIEDs, protected SDF and civilian lives, and preserved the integrity of the greatest portion of the wall,” the US statement said.
“The portions targeted were 25-meter sections and will help preserve the remainder of the overall 2,500-meter wall,” it added.
SDF fighters breach wall surrounding Old City of Raqqa
SDF fighters breach wall surrounding Old City of Raqqa
Israeli strikes killed eight people in south Lebanon: state media
- Israeli strikes killed eight people in Lebanon on Thursday as Israel renewed its evacuation call for vast areas of the country’s south, long a stronghold of Hezbollah
BEIRUT: Israeli strikes killed eight people in Lebanon on Thursday as Israel renewed its evacuation call for vast areas of the country’s south, long a stronghold of Hezbollah.
The Iran-backed militant group, which dragged Lebanon into the regional war on Monday when it launched an attack on Israel, said it had launched missiles at positions in the Galilee area.
The National News Agency (NNA) reported that the mayor of a village in the Nabatieh region of south Lebanon and his wife were killed in one strike, while in a nearby village another strike killed two children and their parents.
The Lebanese health ministry said two people were killed by a strike on a car near the city of Zahle in the east of the country.
There were new strikes on the southern suburbs of the capital, Hezbollah’s main bastion, early on Thursday, NNA reported, with AFPTV footage showing smoke coming from the area.
It also said a pre-dawn Israeli drone strike hit an apartment in Beddawi, a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli in the north of Lebanon, killing senior Hamas official Wassim Atallah Al-Ali and his wife.
Also on Thursday, Israel renewed its warning to residents of hundreds of square kilometers (miles) of southern Lebanon to evacuate because of military action.
Arabic-language spokesman for the Israeli military Avichay Adraee posted on X: “Urgent warning to residents of southern Lebanon: you must immediately continue evacuating to the north of the Litani river.”
The warning included the cities of Tyre and Bint Jbeil.
On Tuesday, Israel’s military said it was creating a buffer zone inside Lebanon to protect Israeli residents.
The following day, it said troops from three divisions, including infantry, armored and engineering units were operating inside Lebanon.
