Analysis | Fight against besieged Islamic State approaches endgame in Iraq and Syria – but Trump still has no strategy

Intense debate is under way within the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House over the way forward

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Kurdish fighters from the People's Protection Units, who are battling Islamic State forces, run across a street in Raqqa, Syria on Monday. Photo: Reuters

Published: 2:53pm, 4 Jul 2017Updated: 10:41pm, 4 Jul 2017

US-backed forces in Syria have entered the most heavily fortified area of Raqqa, the de facto capital of Islamic State (IS), in what a US official says is a “key milestone” in the war against the jihadist force.

Success in Raqqa and major advances by US-backed forces in Mosul, a second IS stronghold in Iraq, represent a powerful double blow to the violent extremist group. But even as the endgame for IS in Iraq and Syria looms, the administration of US President Donald Trump still has yet to outline its strategy for what comes next – the epic task of trying to stabilise the region while keeping any Islamist resurgence at bay.

The US Central Command said in a statement on Tuesday that coalition forces supported an advance by Syrian Democratic Forces fighters “into the most heavily fortified portion of Raqqa by opening two small gaps in the Rafiqah Wall that surrounds the Old City.”

An Iraqi soldier stands next to the destroyed Great Mosque of al-Nuri in the old city area western Mosul, Iraq, on Monday. Photo: EPA

The SDF have spent months closing in on the IS bastion and entered the city’s east and west for the first time last month. According to the coalition, some 2,500 IS jihadists are defending the city.

IS overran Raqqa in 2014, turning it into the de facto capital of its self-declared “caliphate”. The city was the scene of some of the group’s worst atrocities, including public beheadings. The United Nations warns that up to 100,000 civilians are still trapped in the city.

US-backed Iraqi forces meanwhile appear within days of ejecting the last few hundred IS fighters from their redoubt in the crowded warren of Mosul’s Old City.