IS sway recedes in Syrian Kurdish city

Damascus, January 2:The US–led anti–terror coalition carried out several airstrikes against positions of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in their de facto capital of al–Raqqa in northern Syria on Friday. The US–led coalition conducted about 14 airstrikes on the outskirts of al–Raqqa and the Furusiyeh area between midnight Thursday and early Friday, Xinhua reported citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. But the Britain–based watchdog group said there was no news on causalities yet.

Al–Raqqa fell to the IS last year and the US strikes repeatedly targeted the IS positions in that area, which was declared by the group as their de facto capital in northern Syria. Separately, the observatory, which relies on a network of activists on ground, said the IS’s presence has largely declined in the predomintly Kurdish city of Kobani, also known as Ayn al–Arab, in northern Syria close to the Turkish borders. Head of the observatory, Rami Abdul–Rahman said on TV that the Kurdish militants of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) controlled 70 percent of that contested city. (ians)