Raqa offensive to begin 'in days'

The international coalition battling the Islamic State group will begin a final push on the jihadists' Syrian stronghold Raqa in the coming days, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said yesterday.

But on the ground, the US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance spearheading the battle for the jihadist group's de facto Syrian capital expressed caution about how soon the battle for Raqa would begin.

IS has come under growing pressure from twin US-backed ground offensives targeting Raqa and their other main stronghold, Mosul in Iraq.

"Today, we can say that Raqa is surrounded and the battle will begin in the coming days," Le Drian told France's CNEWS television.

"This will be a very hard battle but essential."

The jihadists are under attack from several directions in northern Syria, with Russia supporting its Syrian ally President Bashar al-Assad on one front and Turkey providing air cover for rebel groups battling the jihadists on another.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-Arab alliance, has been working for months to encircle Raqa.

But a spokesman for the alliance said there was still work to do.

"The operation to besiege Raqa will take several weeks and that will then lead to the official launch of the operation," Talal Sello told AFP.

For now, the alliance is focused on the strategically important Tabqa Dam near Raqa and the adjacent town of Tabqa and its airport.

The US military has provided air and artillery support involving Apache helicopter gunships to help the SDF in the battle for the dam and the surrounding area, as well as airlifting in fighters.

The US has several hundred troops on the ground in Syria supporting the SDF.

But the alliance is still around eight kilometres (five miles) from Raqa at its closest point, to the northeast, and is mostly stationed further away, between 18 and 29 kilometres from the city, according to the Observatory.

A US official said last week that up to 1,000 additional American troops could deploy to northern Syria under provisional plans drawn up by the Pentagon.

The anti-IS coalition estimates that between 3,000 and 4,000 jihadists are in Raqa, a city of about 300,000.

Iraqi forces to deploy new tactics in Mosul, civilians flee city

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In Iraq, forces are to deploy new tactics in a fresh push against Islamic State in Mosul, military officials said yesterday, after advances slowed recently.

Families meanwhile streamed out of the northern Iraqi city in an ongoing exodus of people fleeing in their thousands each day, headed for cold, crowded camps or to stay with relatives.

The US-backed offensive to drive Islamic State out of Mosul, now in its sixth month, has recaptured most of the city. The entire eastern side and around half of the west is under Iraqi control.

The latest round of UN-backed Syria peace talks entered a second day in Geneva yesterday but there was little hope of a breakthrough in negotiations that have yielded little in previous rounds.