The US military announced that it expects US-backed forces on the ground to nearly isolate in the coming days the Islamic State’ stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, which is the declared capital of the extreme Muslim group in the war-torn-country.
“Well, we continue working on the isolation phase to approach the city. This is a key part of the campaign. We’re working that with the Syrian democratic forces in the Syria Arab coalition. Raqqa is a city that the enemy uses for external operations. So what we would expect is that within the next few weeks the city will be nearly completely isolated and then there will be decision point to move in. We’re not going to give the exact timing of the effort to seize this city but we do believe that excellent progress is being made and we’ll continue to pressure the enemy on multiple fronts,” said Colonel John Dorrian, US-led coalition spokesman.
The recapture of Raqqa would signify the beginning of the end for the Islamic State in Syria, which is progressively losing territory. Intelligence experts tell TV7 that the main focus is to contain the extreme Muslim group from its efforts to infiltrate Western countries, as the main battle after the Islamist group loses all of its territory, would be to combat its ideology that persists among many Muslim communities around the world.