America And Its Allies Begin The Battle To Capture Islamic State’s Raqqa Stronghold
Syria RebelsAmerica and its allies have begun what has been described as the long and difficult battle to capture the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital.
The U.S.-led coalition fighting the extremist group said today, Tuesday that Kurdish-led militants has atrted laying the groundwork for the offensive in November, edging through the surrounding province and cutting supply lines into the city.
But a showdown for the city itself will prove a major test for the coalition, with the potential for high civilian casualties.
“The fight for Raqqa will be long and difficult,” Lt. Geneneral Steve Townsend, the coalition’s commanding general, said in a statement.
In northeastern Syria, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group dominated by Syrian Kurdish militants, announced that a “great battle” had begun.
Islamic State militants seized Raqqa in January 2014, transforming it into the hub from which the group’s leadership planned expansion throughout the region and attacks around the world.
Three and a half years later, the city has diminished in importance as the group has lost two-thirds of its self-declared caliphate across Syria and Iraq. Western diplomats and experts monitoring the group say the Islamic State has relocated foot soldiers and senior leaders to the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, where an even tougher fight against the militants can be expected.
But U.S. officials estimate that at least 3,000 Islamic State fighters are still holed up inside Raqqa, where they have erected defenses against the anticipated assault.
Among them are as many as 200,000 civilians, who aid groups fear may be used as human shields, a tactic employed by the Islamic State in its strongholds across Syria and Iraq as coalition forces closed in.
Conditions inside the city are understood to be dire. According to a recent assessment by the Syria Relief Network, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations, two-thirds of the population are living on two meals a day amid dwindling supplies of essentials because of the siege.
SDF forces reached the northern and eastern gates to Raqqa last week after intense clashes under the cover of U.S.-led airstrikes.
Talal Sillo, a spokesman for the SDF, said Tuesday that the “great battle” is underway. “Morale is high and military readiness to implement the military plan is complete, in coordination with the U.S.-led coalition,” he told reporters in northeast Syria, flanked by representatives of Kurdish male and female fighting units, as well as Syrian rebel groups and Arab tribesmen.
Washington’s decision to back a Kurdish-led force has soured relations with Turkey, a NATO ally, which is battling Kurdish militants within its own borders. In Ankara, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Tuesday that the army is not ruling out military force if the battle for Raqqa is seen as a threat to Turkey.
The U.S.-led coalition emphasized the SDF’s “multi-ethnic” composition in its statement Tuesday. But Arab fighters within the SDF have long maintained that they are the junior partner in a force dominated by battle-hardened Kurdish fighters.
“Sometimes we feel like we are decorations. None of the Arab forces have any real power in this battle,” one man said in a recent interview, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said Tuesday that the SDF has captured some buildings in the Mishlab area and that Islamic State fighters have withdrawn from parts of the district. A second attack was reported against military barracks, Division 17, on the northern outskirts of Raqqa.
“It’s hard to convince new recruits that ISIS is a winning cause when they just lost their twin ‘capitals’ in both Iraq and Syria,” Townsend said in the coalition statement, using an acronym for the Islamic State.
Islamic State fighters are also under pressure across the border in Iraq, where U.S.-backed forces are locked in a grinding battle to retake the last neighborhoods held by the extremist group in the sprawling city of Mosul.
The group’s defeats across the two countries are believed to have strained its finances, which were heavily dependent on the ability to tax and extort populations under its control.
As Islamic State forces dig deep across their remaining territory, civilians have increasingly been caught in the crossfire, dying from the militants’ bombings and land mines as well as from coalition airstrikes and SDF shelling.
The International Rescue Committee said Tuesday that it was “deeply concerned” for Raqqa’s civilians and warned that they risked “facing the full brunt of the assault to come.”
Separately on Tuesday, the Pentagon said it had launched a second airstrike in a month against pro-government forces that it said threatened U.S. and allied troops based in southern Syria.
“Despite previous warnings, pro-regime forces entered the agreed-upon de-confliction zone with a tank, artillery, anti-aircraft weapons, armed technical vehicles and more than 60 soldiers,” the coalition said in a statement. It was not clear how many of those pro-government troops had been killed. [myad]
APC Governors And Okorocha’s Desperate Survival Moves, By Mayowa Samuel
There is no doubt that things are falling apart for the Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha and he knows it. After deceiving the people with mouth watering promises, his inability to deliver has been exposed and he seems to be moving from pillar to post.He is being haunted by his own ineptitude now.
Recently, He has come under intense scrutiny by Imo State citizens, with their viral campaign on social media with the use of the hashtag #ImoFailedMission.The campaign evidently rattled Okorocha and his men who have responded with a more outlandish counter hashtag #ImoRescueMission. Also, a recent THISDAY mid-term report scored Imo state very low, prompting visceral responses from Okorocha’s men.
But it appears the governor’s latest trick did not work.He recently resolved to sack his entire executive council and most of his aides except one or two. Perhaps the governor is feeling the heat of disgruntlement afterall.
In case you have not been following it, the #ImoFailedMission has been exposing the rot and incompetence in Imo under Okorocha. The social media campaign has revealed that Okorocha’s era is full of empty promises: including many failed projects and even abandoned projects. The campaign has chronicled Imo’s governance citing examples and using pictures and videos appropriately.
The campaign clearly also show Rochas as a man with a ravenous ambition for power, even if he knows he is massively incompetent. Afterall, what matters is not his capacity to drive and lead change, but the fact that it is Igbo’s turn.
Since he feels he doesn’t need Imo people any more, he has chosen to abandon some of the seemingly lofty (grandiose) projects he initiated. A certain Bamikole Adeleye touring Eastern Nigeria has spoken to many in Imo. He recounts that Imo today is replete, for instance with abandoned hospital buildings. In his survey of some local governments the feedback from respondents was an appalling verdict: that healthcare services in the General Hospitals have declined, with lack of sophisticated equipment, and expensive out-patient services for citizens. Respondents also added thatthere was“no noticeable improvement in the employment of quality workforce or rapid standardization of general hospitals”
Women, children and households generally bear the brunt of mis-governance. Even many pregnant and feeding mothers have been complaining bitterly about the quality of service and also of expenses incurred during pre-natal check-up and diagnosis. In many cases, these forced them to patronize private sector hospitals, leading to an increase in out-of-pocket expenditure. This is worse when the lack of consistency in salaries of public servants.There are reports of a particular hospital structure that has been converted into a timber factory, the timber factory itself abandoned!
Yet in spite of this glaring evidence of incompetence and failure to connect with the people, the Imo State Governor, Okorocha continues with his ego trip, leaving none in doubt about his big ambition, which is to become President of Nigeria.He has been working his contacts across the country attending major functions to announce himself. He has cemented himself as the chairman of the APC governor’s forum. But has he reallyproven worthy of that office? Those who worked for his emergence as governor are disappointed.
As Chairman, Progressive Governors’ Forum, how effective has he steered the think tank?In fact one is shocked that the governors have not found it necessary yet to strip Okorocha of the position. He has not given dynamic leadership to a forum of progressive governors who were voted into office with thechange mantra. Unless, of course, they are birds of a feather!
For heaven’s sake, given on-the-spot accounts of Okorocha’s failed promises, the Imo State Governor does not come across as the great visionary leader he likes to project himself.Whythen are the progressive governors pretending that they have a leader when he is actually running their forum into near oblivion.
It’s worth repeating that Okorocha is a liability to the Progressive Governors as well as the party’s desire to expand beyond the present frontiers in the days and months ahead.
Let me ask: what people-oriented cause has the leadership of the Progressive Governors embarked upon? All we see are public speeches full of sophistry from Okorocha.
Here is my advice for the APC governors:In the South East, Okorocha,and by extension the APC, are no longer takenseriously; and it is common knowledge that APC will assuredly suffer defeat if elections held today in Imo.
There is such a dire urgency for these governors to move quickly to rejig its leadership before such negative perception is extended to other APC states. I have heard it said: how can anyone take progressives governors seriously when they have Okorochaas their leader?
If the real reason for picking Okorocha as the leader of Progressive Governors was to ensure an in-road into the South East, there is clear evidence now that that has failed. Okorocha’s poor performance has led to some palpable revulsion towards the party.
The Progressive Governors need to come up with any of their better performing governors as their leader to inject some life into the activities of their group.A stitch in time saves nine. [myad]