Source: The Washington Post
BEIRUT — A U.S.-backed force in Syria announced Tuesday that it was resuming operations against the Islamic State after an earlier push stalled as fighters left for other battlefronts.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-dominated alliance backed by the United States, has handed the Islamic State several defeats. The SDF in October ousted the extremist group from Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate. But the fight for the militants’ last stronghold, the oil-rich eastern province of Deir al-Zour, foundered this year when thousands of SDF fighters left to battle another foe — Turkey, which seized much of the Kurdish-
dominated Afrin enclave in northern Syria.
Categories: America, ISIS, Middle East, Syria, The Muslim Times, USA