Syrians, who fled the IS stronghold of Raqqa, arrive in an area near the village of Balaban, south of Jarablus, yesterday.
Beirut: US-backed fighters gained ground against the Islamic State group in the streets of Raqqa yesterday, their command said, a day after breaking into the IS's Syrian bastion. The Syrian Democratic Forces have spent months advancing on the northern city and finally thrust into the eastern neighbourhood of Al-Meshleb on Tuesday.
The Arab and Kurdish fighters captured the neighbourhood and the Harqal citadel to the west of the city, the command of Operation Wrath of the Euphrates said. The citadel sits on a hilltop roughly 2km from the city limits. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there was also fighting inside the Division 17 military complex, around two kilometres north of Raqqa, but the area had been heavily mined by IS. The Britain-based monitoring group said the US-led coalition had carried out heavy bombing raids on the city overnight. Captured by the militants in early 2014, Raqqa became notorious as a hub for IS's operations in Syria, Iraq and beyond.
The city has been the scene of some of the group's worst atrocities, including gruesome executions.
