SDF continue to control neighborhoods of Raqqa city and besiege a group of ISIS in the last neighborhood

Raqqa province – The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights:: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned that the clashes are still ongoing at a violent pace between the Syrian Democratic Forces supported by the US Special Forces against members of ISIS in areas in the city of al-Raqqa, which used to be the Islamic State’s capital in Syria, which the organization’s control decreased to less than 36% of the city. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned that the SDF managed to achieve strategic advancement in the city, where they controlled the neighborhood of al-Daria in the western section of the city of al-Raqqa, as they also advanced and controlled Al-Muroor neighborhood and managed to besiege groups of ISIS inside the neighborhoods of al-Muroor, while the SDF achieved more advancement in the area, within continued attempts to end the presence of ISIS in the city of Raqqa, while the organization carried out repel attacks on positions of the SDF, where most of the clash areas are witnessing hit and run operations and an exchange of control between both parties, amid shelling by both parties on the clash areas, and there is information about human losses in both of their ranks.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also monitored the International Coalition warplanes as carrying out heavy airstrikes targeted areas in the city of Raqqa, while ISIS still exist, and the airstrikes concentrated on the center of the city and its vicinity.

And Syrian Observatory for Human Rights published yesterday that it rose to at least 989, including an SOHR activist, 234 children and 164 women, the number of civilian citizens documented by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in Al-Raqqah city and its countryside since the 5th of June 2017 until the 8th of September 2017. And the casualties are 973 civilians including at least 231 children below the age of eighteen and 160 women over the age of eighteen, they were killed in Al-Raqqah city. In addition, 16 civilians, including 3 children and 4 women, were killed in raids on Zor Shamar village and another area at the southern banks of the Euphrates in the eastern countryside of Al-Raqqah. Airstrikes also left hundreds of civilians injured with varied degrees of severity, some of whom had their limbs amputated and some suffered permanent disabilities and others are still in critical conditions, which indicate that the death toll is likely to rise again. Moreover, dozens of houses and public utilities were destroyed as a result of the intensive shelling that targeted the city, its surroundings and outskirts.