BBC:carrying the flag of annexed Syria
-The Syrian Democratic Forces say they have retaken al-Naim square, where IS once held public executions.-The official declaration that the city has been recaptured is expected soon, a BBC correspondent reports.-Earlier, a convoy of local IS fighters and their families left Raqqa as part of a preplanned departure.-The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, has been besieging the city for nearly four months.
As the US carpet bombed, but, hey who's been paying attention to that!
-An SDF vehicle has been patrolling the ruined streets with a loudspeaker urging people to come out into the open and "eat hot soup", our correspondent says.
A loudspeaker urging people to come 'eat hot soup' claims the BBC correspondent? CBS
-There's been no official declaration of victory, but U.S.-backed fighters in Raqqa aren't waiting for one.
-The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is finished in Raqqa, they said, after hundreds of extremists surrendered over the weekend. -They've had some help from U.S. airstrikes, but the Syrian militiamen that did the fighting on the ground are the very definition of a ragtag army.
The coverage from CBS is pathetic. "some help from US airtrikes"?Who were the PKK/YPG fighting when ISIS was surrendering all last week?
October 08/2017: US Commander:Final Assault to Take Raqqa From ISIS Begins Sunday
"ISIS"(PKK/YPG/Assorted special ops and a veneer of Arabs) is converging in one convenient location where they will be loaded up covertly and transported to Deir ez Zor. To fight SAA and allies. After all a stadium is convenient location for an irregular army to converge for ease of transport
Saturday, October 14, 2017:Razors Edge 2: US Faces Imminent Decision on Race for Syria's East
My understanding of what is/has been occurring in Raqqa is civilian displacement.- Ethnic cleansing. The US has been bombing, heavily, and those that manage to flee have been"saved” by the PKK/YPG who transport them to squalid refugee camps- with access to filthy water! (That’s what’s been reported) These Syrian residents are not going to go back to their homes. Not if the US backed Kurds have anything to do with it. And, they do!*Russian Ministry of Defence Accuses US of Bombing Raqqa Residential Areas*TASS: Carpet bombing of residential areas accommodated by civilians "have brought about nothing but several thousand victims among the ‘liberated’ population"
Annexed Syria flagThe US Cannot Go It Alone on Iran- Richard Haas