A Senior Field Commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are backed by the US, announced that the final assault on the ISIS capital Raqqa would start today.
Since declaring their caliphate in 2014, Raqqa has always been the capital of ISIS, from where it spread out all over Syria and even took parts of northern Iraq, reaching as far as Mosul only to be stopped some 30 miles north of Bagdad.
But now the remaining ISIS fighters are cornered in a small area within the city centre, blocked from all sides by the Syrian army and the SDF army. Russian airstrikes have cut off their supply lines, and guesses are that many of the fighters have already fled.
<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">coalition airstrike hits ISIS positions next to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Raqqa?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Raqqa</a> stadium, filmed by <a href="https://twitter.com/BradleyCoxBKK?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BradleyCoxBKK</a> <a href="https://t.co/PPOG8bXmWF">pic.twitter.com/PPOG8bXmWF</a></p>— Tony (@TLCBkk) <a href="https://twitter.com/TLCBkk/status/916734899683553281?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 7, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Estimations range that some 300 ISIS fighters are all that’s left in the city. Five months of relentless bombing have reduced their area to just three neighbourhoods where all buildings are annihilated.
In Raqqa, the Clock Tower Square was used for executions by ISIS. Now those have also stopped.
Ismael, a local pharmacist who fled the city, remembers: “There were around 13 executions a month. They used to line the roundabout wearing masks, and go around the streets with a loudspeaker ordering people to watch. If you were a spy they cut your throat from the front. The same if you were a blasphemer or murderer. Magicians were beheaded from the back. Women were always shot.”
<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SDF?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SDF</a> fighter in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Raqqa?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Raqqa</a> confirms daesh held territory is very small & shrinking every day. Daesh attempts 2 infiltrate SDF lines are thwarted <a href="https://t.co/2mkzgDEGBp">pic.twitter.com/2mkzgDEGBp</a></p>— Rojava (@AzadiRojava) <a href="https://twitter.com/AzadiRojava/status/916638254069420032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 7, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Back in the Syrian capital Damascus, Bashar Al Assad is eagerly awaiting any word on the final defeat of ISIS.
Now that Turkish backed forces have entered in the northern province of Idlib to take out the last rebellion over there, he will soon be able to take up his preferred role as dictator of Syria again, as neither Russia nor the US has presented any likely alternative. The Kurds will be in despair for having apparently fought for nothing if neither Iraq, Iran or Turkey grant them a slice of land, but with ISIS out of the way, that is the likely outcome of this war in Syria which took way too long to finish.
Source:
film the guy filming the combat