BEIRUT: A month into the battle to capture the Daesh group’s self-styled capital, U.S-backed Syrian forces have encircled the militants inside Raqqa, breached their fortified defenses and inched closer to the heart of the city. Yet the battle has barely begun.
More than 2,000 militants are holed up with their families and tens of thousands of civilians in Raqqa’s center, the city’s most densely populated quarters.
Although a fraction the size of Iraq’s Mosul, Raqqa’s urban warfare may prove as grueling, and those fighting the extremists risk being dragged into side battles with other groups in Syria’s complex civil war.
In Raqqa’s case, the Syrian Kurdish militia that is the main US ally against Daesh has been rattled by Turkey’s mobilization on the other side of the country. Turkey is threatening to launch an offensive against a Kurdish enclave in western Syria with the help of Syrian opposition fighters. Turkish troops have mobilized near the border, and the recent Turkish shelling of Kurdish villages killed at least three civilians.
Kurdish officials warned that Turkey’s moves threaten to derail the Raqqa campaign by forcing the Kurdish militia to redeploy to defend its enclave.
Syria observers also point to the lack of capabilities and training of the U.S-backed Syrian fighters, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, compared to the Iraqi troops battling Daesh militants in Mosul and the surrounding Nineveh province since August.
“So (Mosul) is actually a yearlong campaign. I don’t think Raqqa will take that long, but it will take time,” US special envoy Brett McGurk told the Dubai-based Al-Aan TV during a visit to the Raqqa front last month. He refused to specify a timeline.
Another issue is who will run Raqqa once the militants are driven out. The area’s Arab population is likely to oppose any control by the Kurds, who are the dominant faction of the SDF. The US-led coalition has said a local council formed by the SDF will govern.
Meanwhile, the Syrian government has vowed it will rule Raqqa, and its forces nearby could try to take advantage of the shifting situation and step in.
The coalition last week estimated some 2,500 militants remain in Raqqa. Senior members and foreigners are believed to have evacuated, and most of those who remain are believed to be Syrian fighters and tactical commanders.
They have used many of the same tactics as in Mosul, showing a similar level of organization and discipline. They deploy suicide car bombs and armed drones against advancing fighters and launch street battles in the dead of night. They carry out surprise counter-attacks in areas already recaptured by the SDF.
“This defense is designed to draw out the fight and drive up the cost for the coalition and the local population,” said Jennifer Cafarella, a Syria expert at the Institute of War Study.
Last year’s battle for the northern town of Manbij, which is half the size of Raqqa but was an important transit hub for Daesh, lasted over two months and ended with the militants retreating with hundreds of civilians as hostages.
In this case, the militants so far appear determined to fight to the end. If that’s the case, the SDF will have to “exterminate everyone before seizing control of Raqqa,” said Rami Abdurrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Assad’s ally Russia has also made clear it opposes giving the Raqqa militants any exit corridor because they would then head to Deir el-Zour, where the Syrian government is waging its own campaign against Daesh, Abdurrahman said.
Since June 6, SDF fighters have waged assaults on Raqqa from the east, west and north, seizing around 20 percent of its districts. Last week, they moved across the Euphrates River, which defines Raqqa’s southern side, completing the encirclement. From there they punched into the Old City in the center.
But it remains to be seen which side is more overstretched by fighting on four fronts. The militants at one point counter-attacked, seizing parts of one eastern district, Al-Sinaa, and it took the SDF days to wrest it back.
SDF fighters face belts of improvised explosives around the city, said Col. Joseph Scrocca, a coalition spokesman.
As they try to get through the bomb-laden streets, the militants hit them with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, explosive-laden drones and snipers, he said. “There is still a lot of hard fighting to go.”
An estimated 50,000 to 100,000 civilians are believed to still be in Raqqa, caught in the crossfire.
The Observatory reported 224 civilians have been killed by airstrikes, including 38 children, 28 women and one of its own activists. Fighting and airstrikes also killed 311 Daesh militants, while the SDF lost 106 fighters, the Observatory reported.
Abdalaziz Alhamza, a founding member of the group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, which has monitored events in the city since the Daesh takeover in January 2014, said SDF forces don’t advance without a blanket of airstrikes that have kept the civilians locked up in their homes with shrinking supplies of water and food.
Alhamza’s uncle was killed last week while getting water from a well in a school nearby. Alhamza said when the first airstrike hit, the uncle rushed to help children taking refuge in the school, then a second strike killed him. He had to be buried in the school because his family couldn’t reach his body, Alhamza said, speaking from New York.
His group documented 27 people killed while fetching water at the river in the past month. Drinking river water has also spread water-borne diseases and a fear of cholera, he said.
At the same time, Daesh has continued arrests and executions of residents accused of collaborating with the coalition or violating the group’s extreme interpretation of Islamic laws. One woman was stabbed in the heart with a knife for an undetermined violation, and some were crucified for not fasting during Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, he said.
A fraction of Mosul, Syria’s Raqqa no less challenging
A fraction of Mosul, Syria’s Raqqa no less challenging
Syria’s Kurdish fighters agree to leave Aleppo after deadly clashes
- Syria’s official SANA news agency reported that “buses carrying the last batch of members of the SDF organization have left the Sheikh Maqsud neighborhood in Aleppo, heading toward northeastern Syria”
ALEPPO: Syria’s Kurdish fighters said Sunday that they agreed under a ceasefire to withdraw from Aleppo after days of fighting government forces in the city.
Hours earlier, Syria’s military said it had finished operations in the Kurdish-held Sheikh Maqsud neighborhood with state television reporting that Kurdish fighters who surrendered were being bused to the north.
The military had already announced its seizure of Aleppo’s other Kurdish-held neighborhood, Ashrafiyeh.
Kurdish forces had controlled pockets of Syria’s second city Aleppo and operate a de facto autonomous administration across swathes of the north and northeast, much of it captured during the 14-year civil war.
The latest clashes erupted after negotiations to integrate the Kurds into the country’s new government stalled.
“We reached an understanding that led to a ceasefire and secured the evacuation of the martyrs, the wounded, the trapped civilians and the fighters from Ashrafiyeh and Sheikh Maqsud neighborhoods to northern and eastern Syria,” the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) wrote in a statement.
Syria’s official SANA news agency reported that “buses carrying the last batch of members of the SDF organization have left the Sheikh Maqsud neighborhood in Aleppo, heading toward northeastern Syria.”
The SDF initially denied its fighters were leaving, describing the bus transfers as forced displacement of civilians.
An AFP correspondent saw at least five buses on Saturday carrying men out of Sheikh Maqsud, but could not independently verify their identities.
According to the SDF statement, the ceasefire was reached “through the mediation of international parties to stop the attacks and violations against our people in Aleppo.”
The United States and European Union both called for the Syrian government and Kurdish authorities to return to political dialogue.
The fighting, some of the most intense since the ousting of long-time ruler Bashar Assad in December 2024, has killed at least 21 civilians, according to figures from both sides, while Aleppo’s governor said 155,000 people fled their homes.
Both sides blamed the other for starting the clashes on Tuesday.
Children ‘still inside’
On the outskirts of Sheikh Maqsud, families who had been trapped by the fighting were leaving, accompanied by Syrian security forces.
An AFP correspondent saw men carrying children on their backs board buses headed to shelters.
Dozens of young men in civilian clothing were separated from the crowd, with security forces making them sit on the ground before transporting them to an unknown destination, according to the correspondent.
A Syrian security official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the young men were “fighters” being “transferred to Syrian detention centers.”
At the entrance to the district, 60-year-old Imad Al-Ahmad was heading in the opposite direction, trying to seek permission to return home.
“I left four days ago...I took refuge at my sister’s house,” he told AFP. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to return today.”
Nahed Mohammad Qassab, a 40-year-old widow also waiting to return, said she left before the fighting to attend a funeral.
“My three children are still inside, at my neighbor’s house. I want to get them out,” she said.
A flight suspension at Aleppo airport was extended until further notice.
‘Return to dialogue’
US envoy Tom Barrack met Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Saturday, and afterwards called for a “return to dialogue” with the Kurds in accordance with the integration framework agreed in March.
The deal was meant to be implemented last year, but differences, including Kurdish demands for decentralized rule, stymied progress as Damascus repeatedly rejected the idea.
The fighting in Aleppo raised fears of a regional escalation, with neighboring Turkiye, a close ally of Syria’s new Islamist authorities, saying it was ready to intervene. Israel has sided with the Kurdish forces.
The clashes have also tested the Syrian authorities’ ability to reunify the country after the brutal civil war and commitment to protecting minorities, after sectarian bloodshed rocked the country’s Alawite and Druze communities last year.
