Militants burst from tunnels, hit weak points in Raqqa fight
RAQQA, Syria — The surprise attack came before dawn. An Islamic State group militant emerged from underground right into a deserted building being used as a position by U.S.-backed Syrian forces on a front line in Raqqa. He screamed, Allahu akbar, or “God is great,” and threw a bomb, killing a guard.
More militants burst out of the tunnel, raced up to the top floor and killed three fighters, capturing the building and the battling for hours with other fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces. More than a week after the battle, described to The Associated Press by SDF fighters and commanders, IS militants still hold the building on Raqqa’s western side, their snipers face to face with the SDF snipers meters away. While AP visited the site, an airstrike hit the top of the building, yet soon after, an IS sniper there opened fire — a burst of bullets to proclaim that he had survived.
Now in its seventh week, the assault to recapture the northern Syrian city of Raqqa from IS militants has ground down into a bloody battle of attrition from street to street, each trying to draw out and weaken the other. Having prepared for months, the militants have put up stiff resistance, using an extensive network of tunnels to strike behind their enemies, deploying land mines and suicide bombers and slowing the SDF advance.
“They are like rats. They pop up from underground and then disappear again,” said one SDF fighter on a frontline on the eastern side of the old city, which has become the focus on the battle.