US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces on Thursday have seized full control of southern neighborhoods of Raqqa, tightening the noose of Islamic State fighters, local monitoring group said.
Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said the Kurdish-led alliance took Hisham Ibn Abdul Malek neighborhood and most of bundlings adjacent to Euphrates River.
By taking the southern districts, the islamic State has lost its last remaining path to the Euphrates River which is to the south of the city.
SDF fighters have also pressed gain in the western neighborhoods, the monitor said.
On Monday, the World Health Organization said there were critical shortages of medical supplies in Raqqa, where it estimated up to 50,000 civilians remained. Separately, Medecins Sans Frontieres said many sick and wounded people were trapped.
The SDF launched its U.S.-backed campaign to seize Raqqa in early June. The assault on Islamic State's de facto capital in Syria overlapped with the campaign to drive IS from the Iraqi city of Mosul, where IS was defeated last month.
The Kurdish official told Reuters SDF fighters advancing from the east and the west remain separated by a few streets where fighting continued.
Meanwhile, ISIS has called on young men to take up arms in eastern Syria.
In a statement distributed Thursday in Deir Al-Zor province that borders Iraq, Daesh called on all men between 20 and 30 who are able to fight to head to mobilization offices within a week.
The call comes as the extremists have lost large parts of areas they controlled in Iraq and Syria, where they declared a caliphate in 2014.
The statement, obtained by The Associated Press from activists in eastern Syria, warns that those who do not join will be undergo questioning and possibly be punished.
