BEIRUT: The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Wednesday its campaign to capture Raqqa from IS was in its final stages and its fighters had seized 80 per cent of the city.

In its fight against a separate operation waged by the Syrian army and its allies, IS has collapsed along the west bank of the Euphrates downstream of Raqqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday. IS has lost swathes of territory in Syria this year, attacked from the north by the SDF and from the west by the Syrian army, which has pushed it back across the desert to its last strongholds in the Euphrates valley.

In a statement on Wednesday, the SDF said it had opened a new front against IS on the northern edge of Raqqa. This was “a feature of the final stages of the Euphrates Wrath campaign, which is nearing its end”. “We can say that 80 per cent of the city of Raqqa has been liberated,” the statement said.

An SDF media official said the main obstacles facing the alliance in Raqqa are avoiding civilian casualties and a high concentration of mines. He estimated that 700 to 1,000 IS fighters remain in the city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that Islamic State now controls only five per cent of the city and its remaining militants there have nearly run out of food and munitions.

The hard-line militants lost their main stronghold in Iraq, the city of Mosul, in July to Western-backed Iraqi forces.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2017