Some 30,000 fighters are taking part in the US-backed offensive to take back control of the Syrian city of Raqqa from Daesh.
“Operation Wrath of the Euphrates”, began on Saturday night, however US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter has warned that the fight to wrest control of Raqqa, “will not be easy”.
“As in Mosul, the fight will not be easy and there is hard work ahead, but it is necessary to end the fiction of ISIL’s caliphate and disrupt the group’s ability to carry out terror attacks against the United States, our allies and our partners,” Carter said, using an alternative name for Daesh.
Turkey meanwhile has expressed alarm that the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), which are heading the assault, were dominated by the Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG), which it considers an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has waged an insurgency against Turkey for more than three decades.