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Syrian force a ‘few weeks’ from Raqqa, U.S. Marines deployed
[Iraq News] U.S.-backed Syrian forces said on Thursday they were closing in on Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
-held Raqqa and expected to reach the city outskirts in a few weeks, as a U.S. Marines artillery unit deployed to help the campaign.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a militia alliance including the Kurdish YPG, is the main U.S. partner in the war against Islamic State in Syria. Since November it has been working with the U.S.-led coalition to encircle Raqqa.

SDF front man Talal Silo said: "We expect that within a few weeks there will be a siege of the city."

Coalition front man U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian said the additional U.S. forces would be working with local partners in Syria ‐ the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian Arab Coalition ‐ and would not have a front line role.

Some 500 U.S. personnel are already in Syria to help the fight against IS. A 400-strong additional deployment which arrived in recent days comprised both Marines and Army Rangers, Dorrian said, adding they were there temporarily.

Coalition Arclight airstrikes killed 23 civilians, including eight children, in the countryside north of Raqqa on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britannia-based war monitor said. The coalition said it was investigating the incident.


Posted by: Fred 2017-03-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=483091