U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian forces announced the start of a plan Sunday to retake the Islamic State terror group’s de facto capital of Raqqa — an operation they called “Euphrates Rage.”
(FOX)- The announcement by the Syria Democratic Forces, a coalition of Kurdish, Arab and Christian forces, was made Sunday at a news conference in Ein Issa, north of Raqqa, attended by commanders and spokespeople for the group. The statement said 30,000 fighters would take part in the operation.
The announcement came as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces had entered the eastern edges of the ISIS-held city of Mosul and were working to push deeper into the last ISIS urban bastion in Iraq.
The Kurdish officials said the two campaigns were not coordinated, but simply “good timing.”
The SDF is dominated by the main Syrian Kurdish fighting force known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG. The United States considers the group as the most effective force against ISIS, but Turkey views them as a terror organization and claims it’s linked to Turkey’s outlawed Kurdish group.
Turkish officials including President Recep Tayip Erdogan have said they will not accept a role for the Kurds in the liberation of Raqqa.
Turkey’s defense minister last week suggested that instead of the Kurds, Turkish-backed forces can present an “alternative.”
But Kurdish officials have rejected any role for Turkey, or the opposition forces it backs inside Syria, in the Raqqa campaign, and U.S. officials have also acknowledged that the YPG will be a major part of any Raqqa offensive.
“Our hope is that the Turkish state will not interfere in the internal affairs of Syria,” said an unidentified SDF official at Sunday’s press conference. “Raqqa will be free by its own sons.”