The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces took Friday three villages from the Islamic State east of Raqaa city after heavy clashes with the radical group, activists said.
Two villages left east of al-Balikh River under ISIS control. Its fall means all eastern countryside to be under the Kurdish-led alliance, such a achievement paving the road Raqqa capture, the de facto capital of the Islamic State group.
The SDF fighters have seized 350 square km (135 square miles) in the past week, tightening "their noose" on Islamic State in an advance to isolate its base of operations at Raqqa, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said on Wednesday.
Some 3,000 to 4,000 Islamic State fighters are thought to be holed up in Raqqa city where they continue to erect defenses against the anticipated assault, drawing coalition air strikes to stop them, Colonel Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, told Reuters in a phone interview from Baghdad, Reuters reported.
"In the last week, the SDF have tightened their noose around ISIS in the northern and eastern and western part of Raqqa," Dillon said. SDF fighters had drawn as near as 4 km (2.5 miles) to Raqqa at their closest point to the city.
Meanwhile, SDF forces have been banning the indigenous people from returning to their home in territories under their control unless being guaranteed by Kurdish or Arabic personalities, local activists said.
The discriminative policy has sparked fears of the deliberate demographic change.
Last week, prominent Syrian Journalist was all of shock when the Kurdish militias declined the entry to his grandfathers’ town of Tel Abyad near Raqqa unless finding a 'Guarantor.'
The Guarantor law is showing the black future that we are heading to’ activists said.
It’s been imposed in Manbij and Raqqa.
The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, has been encircling Raqqa since November in a multi-phased offensive backed by the U.S.-led coalition that is also fighting Islamic State in Iraq. Last week, the SDF accomplished a major goal by capturing Tabqa some 50 km (30 miles) west of Raqqa
