Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Featured

Clash Looming? Russia-backed Syrian Army heading for ISIL’s al-Raqqa in race with US-backed Kurds

Juan Cole 06/09/2016

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – –

The Syrian Arab Army is advancing toward al-Raqqa city, the capital of the phony ISIS “caliphate,” with Russian air support. US Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Christopher Garver confirmed on Wednesday that the US has seen the movement of the troops of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad “to the south and west of Raqqa, and they are heading in that direction.”

Also on Wednesday, the Syrian air force destroyed equipment, fortifications and fighters of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) in Resafa, 40 miles southwest of al-Raqqa city.

That is also area that the Syrian army is now entering. It is five kilometers from Resafa’s main intersection. The Financial Times speculates that the regime of al-Assad may hope that by taking al-Raqqa away from so-called caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Ibrahim al-Samarra’i), it will then be able to make the claim that only it can deal effectively with Daesh, gaining support in the international community that is otherwise horrified by al-Assad’s crimes against humanity.

If the US-backed YPG or Self Defense Forces, a unit of Syria’s leftist Kurds, reaches al-Raqqa at the same time as the Syrian Arab Army, there could be a clash between the two over al-Raqqa. The Syrian Army deeply dislikes the YPG and has vowed to put them down.

—–

Related video:

R&U Video: “SAA operations in Raqqa | June 7th 2016”

Filed Under: Featured, Syria

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....