Syrian army opens new front as Islamic State’s many foes launch coordinated attacks
The Syrian army’s new offensive was described in a pro-Damascus Lebanese newspaper as part of “the race for Raqqa”.
The Syrian army backed by Russian air strikes has opened a major new front against Islamic State (IS), the third big assault on the self-proclaimed caliphate this week after Iraqi forces attempted to storm a city and a Syrian militia advanced with US support.
The week’s three big offensives are some of the most aggressive campaigns against IS since it declared its aim to rule over all Muslims from parts of Iraq and Syria two years ago. They signal apparent new resolve by the group’s disparate foes on a range of fronts.
Heavy Russian air strikes hit IS-held territory in eastern areas of Syria’s Hama province, near the boundary of Raqqa province on Friday. Raqqa city, further east, is IS’s de facto capital in Syria and, along with Mosul in Iraq, the ultimate goal of those seeking to destroy the group’s rule.
The Syrian army had advanced some 20km and was now near the edge of the provincial boundary, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the war.
Separately, US-backed militias, including a Syrian Kurdish force called the YPG and new Arab allies recruited to fight alongside it, have been pressing a multipronged attack against IS in other parts of Raqqa province and neighbouring Aleppo province.
This week, they began a push towards the city of Manbij near the Turkish border, aiming to seize the last 80km stretch of Turkish-Syrian frontier under IS control and cut the group’s main external link for manpower and supplies.
The US military said on Friday its allies were advancing against heavy resistance from IS. If successful, the Manbij campaign would free 40,000 civilians from IS control.
The YPG and its Arab allies, who formed the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) last year, have proven to be the first force in Syria allied to the United States that has been effective in fighting against IS.
The SDF has taken 28 villages from IS in its push towards Manbij, the Syrian Observatory said, and had freed more than a dozen women from the Yazidi minority who were taken by IS fighters from Sinjar in Iraq.
US President Barack Obama has authorised several hundred special forces troops to operate in Syria, some of whom are deployed as advisers in the latest advance.
The Kurdish fighters’ progress has been limited in the past by Turkey, which considers them enemies. But Ankara has signalled its tacit support for the latest advance, saying it understands most fighters involved will be Arabs, not Kurds.
The Syrian army’s new offensive was described in a pro-Damascus Lebanese newspaper as part of “the race for Raqqa” – with the government and its Russian allies trying to advance on IS’s de facto Syrian capital before it falls to the fighters allied to the Americans.
A Syrian military source played this down. Reports the offensive targeted Raqqa were only “expectations”, he said, and both Raqqa and Deir-ez-Zor, another IS-held city in eastern Syria, were possible targets.
Syrian government warplanes killed at least 15 people in air raids on the town of al-Boulil in the eastern province of Deir-ez-Zor on Friday, the Syrian Observatory said, saying four women and a child were among those killed.
Whatever its ultimate target, the offensive appears to be the biggest Damascus has mounted against IS since it recaptured the city of Palmyra with Russian support earlier this year. In the past, the United States has accused Assad and his Russian backers of ignoring IS to take on other foes.
IS’s brutal rule, featuring mass killings, forced conversions and rape, has made it the enemy of all global powers and regional countries. But five years of civil war in Syria, a feeble Iraqi state and global and sectarian rivalries among outside powers have made it impossible to coordinate a single campaign against it.
In Iraq, government troops supported both by US-led coalition air strikes and Iranian-backed Shiite militia, poured into the southern outskirts of the IS bastion Fallujah on Monday. They have since held their positions for four straight days without advancing into the main built-up areas of the city.
Iraq’s finance minister acknowledged in an interview that Fallujah, where the US military fought the biggest battles of its own 2003-2011 occupation, was a “tough nut to crack”. The assault would go slowly to protect thousands of civilians still trapped in the city, he said.
Fallujah is IS’s second-largest bastion in Iraq and closest outpost to Baghdad. But the decision to mount an assault there was not in keeping with the plans of Washington, which would prefer that the Baghdad government focus on recapturing Mosul instead.
Fighting in Fallujah risks the army becoming bogged down in territory inhabited by Sunni tribes long hostile to the Shi’ite-led government. However, Shiite militia and political parties have pressed Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to attack the city to bring an end to suicide bombings in the capital, an hour’s drive away.
In Syria, state media said the army had made territorial gains and inflicted heavy casualties on IS fighters in the Athriya area of eastern Hama province, close to the provincial border with Raqqa.
“There is progress from Athriya on two fronts, but the coming direction is not set,” the military source said, adding that it could be either Raqqa or Deir-ez-Zor, which is on a main route linking IS’s Syrian and Iraqi territories.
The army was focused on eastern and northern areas of both Homs and Hama provinces, he said. Hama borders Raqqa province; Homs borders Deir-ez-Zor.
The Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar said the first aim was to capture the town of Tabqa, site of an air base and major IS arsenal some 50km west of Raqqa city, and put “a foot in the area without leaving it completely to the Americans’ allies”.
