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Last night, ISIS terrorists counter attacked against US-backed YPG forces in the Syrian province of Raqqah. ISIS units seized the village of Suwaydiya Saghirah north of the strategic Tabqa Dam and advanced in the direction of the village of Jabar. By December 27, intense fighting has been ongoing in the area.
Meanwhile, Kurdish YPG units continued to expand their presense in the areas northwest of al-Raqqah advancing near Hadaj and Jadi.
The US-led coalition strikes an alleged ISIS target in the area northwest of Raqqah:
Coalition airstrike hit suspected ISIS position on the northwestern front of the #Raqqa military operation by SDF. pic.twitter.com/9piRAm4DDt
— Afarin Mamosta (@AfarinMamosta) December 26, 2016
US just claimed hit on Dai’ísh base at Thawra, location on map is close by N4 road junction shown as Al Mansurah. This is good news because this base is HQ for the deployed defending units on the right bank of the Euphrates for Tabqa Dam, Tabqa Airfield, Ba’ath Dam. Putting on my battalion S2/S3 hat for a minute any chance of a co-ordinated night crossing (no moon) of Lake Assad by SDF with some US/FR CAS ? or has Dai’ish delayed thru this latest counter-attack ? BTW Tabqa dam cannot be “blown”up, it is a massive earth dam, side on profile is like a trapezium, base 512 m, top 20 m, height 60 m, slope 13.7 deg or 1:4 (roughly, see Wikipedia etc links for Tishreen/Tabqa/Ba’ath system) Ba’ath dam can be clearly seen on SF map at water/irrigated zone interface midway Al-Khatuniyah and Al-Mansurah. Dai’ish can cause damage to superstructure but can only flood downstream via blowing open all sluice gates and slipways on both dams until the water level in Lake Assad drops to 11 cubic kilometers +/- Although the winter rains have started Lake Assad levels will not peak until late spring so this, plus the nasty Turks failing to meet their obligation to supply the entire Euphrates river system with 16 cubic kilometrs/yr means the hydro can only run 4 of 8 turbines at best. Anyway, while I always took these threats very seriously, I don’t think these nihilist nutjobs can cause a major catastophe downstream. Their ability to defend Raqqa is another matter, they are favored by the weather and wonderful defensive terrain to their north plus being located entirely on the left bank their rear is protected by the riverline and high cliffs along the right bank with just two road bridges to guard. If they could fill the Ba’ath Dam reservoir they should be able to flood all the irrigated zone downstream and past Raqqa – this certainly should be a tactical defensive option which makes sense to me.
Thanks a lot for your good informations!