US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces enter old city of Raqqa

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said the SDF took the al-Sanaa industrial neighborhood on Monday as part of their push into the eastern half of the city, and had reached the walls of the Old City neighborhood, Reuters indicated.

SDF media officer Ahmad Mohammed said the SDF had reached the walls but there were still fierce clashes in al-Sanaa and the district had not yet been totally secured, Reuters explained.

The Old City, east of central Raqqa, is a neighborhood of modern housing bordered on two sides by fortified city walls built in the eighth century by the Abbasid Islamic Caliphate which at one point used Raqqa as its capital.

Residents said on Monday the Old City area was being shelled intensely. The U.S.-led coalition estimates that Raqqa, which Islamic State seized from Syrian rebels in 2014 during their lightning advance in Syria and Iraq, is defended by 3,000 to 4,000 jihadists, Reuters said.

It has been a hub both for Islamic State’s military leaders and its bureaucrats, and has been used to plot attacks in countries around the world.

The SDF also advanced from north of the city on Monday, taking a sugar factory complex northeast of Raqqa. A video said to show SDF officers within the complex shows heavy damage to the factory, according to Reuters.

Since the offensive began the SDF, supported by heavy coalition air strikes, have taken territory to the west, east and north of the city, added Reuters.

The fighting has caused large numbers of people to flee the city and surrounding areas, Reuters concluded.