Four members of the Internal Security Forces and two SDF fighters were killed in an ISIS attack on an ISF centre in Syria early Monday, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said.
An SDF spokesman, Farhad Shami, said one ISIS fighter was killed and another was arrested while fleeing, and that one was wearing a suicide belt.
“Others managed to escape to the neighbouring areas,” he said.
“Following the attack, our forces imposed a complete curfew, launched a large-scale sweep operation in the city to foil the dangerous and continuous terrorist attack.”
On Monday, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that ISIS had launched at least 16 assaults against the SDF in Al Raqqa, since the beginning of the month.
The toll from the strikes was 11 people, including nine SDF fighters, dead and nine civilians and combatants wounded, the observatory said. The total count for Monday’s ISIS assault was not immediately clear.
The US provides intelligence and training to the SDF in their battle against ISIS. SDF operations against ISIS were halted last month in anticipation of a ground offensive by Turkey, whose president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he would target Kurdish militants.
In light of an assault on a popular tourist location in Istanbul last November, in which six people were killed, President Erdogan chose to abolish the Kurdish language programme in schools. The SDF denied responsibility for the attack and requested that an international inquiry be held into it.
Image Credit: Baderkhan Ahmad/AP
