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On Tuesday, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) officially announced a start of the operation to retake the city of Raqqa from ISIS terrorists.
“We urge Raqqa people to avoid ISIS positions,” RUDAW quoted SDF Spokesman, Talal Silo, as saying. “Thousands of Syrian people have been rescued from ISIS. All the preparations to launch the offensive have been finished.”
According to the statement, the SDF will advance from the northern, western and eastern directions. Thus, the souhern route remains open for ISIS terrorists that want to leave the city.
“After a long struggle, our forces and the forces carrying out a joint struggle against terrorists have marked in history their legends of heroism. From the historical resistance of Kobanê to the liberation of Girê Spî, Hol and Shaddadi, to the villages of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa, and to the dams in these regions, many historic steps have been taken from the liberation of the people in these regions from the terrorists and the fulfillment of their vital needs within existing resources,” another Kurdish media outlet, ANHA, quoted the SDF spokesman.
It’s interesting to note that the statement delcares the city of Deir Ezzor among the SDF military goals in Syria.
PRESS RELEASE 06.06.2017: Syriac forces participate to #Raqqa city liberation campaign pic.twitter.com/LiW0GppSTg
— SyriacMilitaryMFS (@SyriacMFS) June 6, 2017
More about the battle for Raqqa:
It looks to me that the final major battle will be deir ezzor, maybe isil militants will flee the battle of raqqa to deir ezzor and join the other masses of isil fighters gathering in deir ezzor, who are returning from palmyra, raqqa, aleppo, Mosul, sinjar and many more places, i find it hard to believe the current forces of the SAA defending deir ezzor will be able to hold out against the forces baring down upon them, isil forces relocating to deir ezzor know that deir ezzor will be their last major stand against all forces and the most fanatical, experienced and battle hardened fighters will be digging in for a dirty, brutal fight to the end, but at this point the sdf and us coalition will engage deir ezzor from the north and SAA and its allies will engage from the south which at some point during the battles their lines will cross until the end of the battle for deir ezzor which will bring us coalition in direct contact with SAA and Russia, this reminds me very much of WW2 and the battle for Berlin, but I have very little hope that their will be a unified truce in deir ezzor, I have mentioned many times in previous posts that I believe at this point the real war in syria will begin.
I agree with what you wrote except the end. Russia is not interested in a war with the United States. And the Iranians will not fight alone against the Americans.