Beirut: Warplanes have bombed Daesh’s de facto Syrian capital Raqqa, killing at least 25 civilians. Twin offensives aimed at severing Daesh’s supply line from the Turkish border to Raqqa city appear to have largely stalled as Daesh mounts a fierce defence using suicide bombers.
Six children were among the 25 civilians killed in bombing raids on Raqqa city late Tuesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“Dozens more were wounded, some of them critically,” said the British-based monitoring group, which was not immediately able to determine who had carried out the raids.
The barrage, blamed on the Russian and Syrian air forces, came as government forces sought to recover from losses suffered in a stalled offensive on the extremist-held city.
Activists from the group known as Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, which relies on residents to smuggle news out of the Daesh-held territory, said the air raids also wounded 28 people.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the toll at 25 civilians, including six children, but different casualty tolls are common in reporting from Syria’s civil war, now in its sixth year.
Both activist groups blamed the Russian and Syrian air forces for Wednesday’s air strikes, saying Damascus and its ally Moscow were pummelling Daesh militants amid frustrations over government losses earlier this week.
The US-led coalition has also been bombing Raqqa, the Daesh bastion that is also the seat of the terrorist group’s self-proclaimed caliphate. It’s also the capital of a Syrian province with the same name.
Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently said at least one of the air strikes targeted a neighbourhood popular among “foreign fighters” — militants who have migrated to Syria to fight with the extremist group.
The Daesh group retook large swathes of the Raqqa province from government forces on Tuesday, just two days after Syrian troops managed briefly to seize Thawra, a Daesh-held oilfield, and threatened to retake the Tabqa airbase from the militants.
The government’s highly-publicised campaign to retake Raqqa began on June 2. On Sunday, Syrian government forces advanced to within 10 kilometres of the Tabqa base. The base, located 45km from Raqqa, holds strategic and symbolic value in the government campaign to retake Raqqa.
