The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have recaptured the Darayeh area from ISIS in the southern part of Raqqah city. With this advance, the SDF is very close to a full liberation of the enitre southern part of Raqqah.
Earlier this week, the SDF encircled a group of ISIS members in the areas of Darayeh and al Moroor after it had seized a number of points in Hanah and Karim areas.
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I think it’s wrong to use the word recaptured when the Kurds shouldn’t be in Raqqah. They should use conquered instead.
“Recaptured”? When did the SDF first capture it?
Grapes are sour to some commenters. Be that as it may, by clearing most of the south western IS pocket, leaving only the Moroor quarter (?), SDF made rapid progress.
Once the pocket has been cleared, it is fair to say that the end game for Raqqah is about to start. How long this endgame will take cannot really be predicted. In case of one or more collapses like the one in Dariyah, matters can go very rapidly. It could also take till end of octobre.
Soon the SDF will be able to start allocating resources to new campaigns or just to reserves for consolidating purposes. Interesting times ahead. when more and more FSA forces are turning to SDF and in a pro SDF site the tweet can be found that the “missing” 300 tribal fighters that were lost in southern Raqqah last week have turned up, not as being killed but as in defected to the DeZ MC. If true, it could mean the rapidly growing DeZ MC will soon be able to start a drive towards the Euphrates or east along the northern banks of the river.
When I read ‘recaptured’, this implies to me that the SDF took the area, ISIS launched a counter-attack, and then the SDF drove them out again. This is the plain meaning of the language. In fact, now I am actually confused about the sequence of events.
You will have to take this up with SF as I did not use the word “recapture”. I would have used the term liberated.
If one really is into semantics, recaptured can be used as there are some small factions part of the SDF that used to be from Raqqah and were booted out of the city (in 2014?) when IS took over Raqqah. As they are returning now, for them it is indeed recapture.
For the SDF in general, it is liberation.
The headline of the article = “US-backed SDF Recaptures Darayeh Area From ISIS In Raqqah”.
Heard the 300 were being offered thousands of dollars before IS even attacked, just curious who authorized Brett McGurk to make this offer.
Thousands of dollars for 300 men seems rather cheap. Btw, indirectly you are confirming that they did indeed defect.
I do not know the right or wrong of this, but this is a rather large group of men, part of a “winning” team and it sounds strange to me they would want to change sides when winning. Or do they have another insight?
The problem is the number was apparently very small number which isn’t rare in war and 3000-4000 thousand dollars a month US would be a lot of money for one person apparently that was the offer… and no you can’t join!
There is no hindsight here just some will respond to money if desperate enough. The US has been using the Al Tanf base as a one stop shop for ISIS in supplying equipment to them by using a former ISIS member as the Go between, the commander of the Militia.
The US is not the winning side and neither are their Proxy Kurds from Turkey whom are more agreeable than Syrian Kurds.