{Government troops backed by Russian air strikes cross into Raqqa province for the first time since August 2014.}<\/p>\n
The Syrian army has crossed the boundary of Raqqa province after advancing in a major Russian-backed offensive against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).<\/p>\n
Heavy Russian air strikes hit ISIL-held territory in eastern areas of Hama province, near the boundary of Raqqa, on Friday to facilitate the Syrian army’s advance, the UK-based SOHR said on Saturday.<\/p>\n
ISIL, which controls large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, is fighting Syrian troops, US-backed fighters and other rebel groups in northern Syria and is facing an offensive by Iraqi government forces and its on their stronghold of Fallujah.<\/p>\n
“Regime troops backed by Russian air strikes and Russian-trained militia entered Raqqa province on Saturday morning,” Rami Abdel Rahman, SOHR’s director, told the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n
SOHR said at least 26 ISIL fighters and nine Syrian government and allied troops were killed in the fighting. <\/p>\n
It was the first time that government troops had entered Raqqa province since they were ousted by ISIL fighters in August 2014.<\/p>\n
The Syrian army was making its advances from the Athriya area of eastern Hama province, close to the provincial border with Raqqa.<\/p>\n
The offensive brought troops to within less than 40km of Tabqa, which is the site of an airbase and a big reservoir, SOHR said.<\/p>\n
The Tabqa dam on the Euphrates River, 40km upstream from Raqqa city, is also the target of a separate offensive launched by US-backed Kurdish-led forces advancing from the north late last month.<\/p>\n
Raqqa city, further east, is ISIL’s de facto capital in Syria and also, along with Mosul in Iraq, the ultimate target of the international anti-ISIL coalition seeking to destroy the group’s self-declared caliphate.<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Gaziantep, on the Turkish side of the Turkey-Syria border, said the push into Raqqa from was a “significant development” but there was a still “a long way to go”.<\/p>\n
“Raqqa is besieged by government troops from the west and Syrian factions from the north and from the east – the south is linked to the bordering province of Deir az-Zor which is still an ISIL stronghold,” Ahelbarra said.<\/p>\n
“Now, whoever controls Raqqa will face a mammoth challenge, which is basically securing a vast territory,” he added, noting that both the Syrian government and the Kurdish factions cannot maintain a significant presence of troops in the province as they are also involved in heavy fighting in different battlefields elsewhere in Syria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Government troops backed by Russian air strikes cross into Raqqa province for the first time since August 2014.} The Syrian army has crossed the boundary of Raqqa province after advancing in a major Russian-backed offensive against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-25846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25846"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=25846"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=25846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}