Free Republic

The Deir Ezzor Military Council announced a new US-backed offensive against the Islamic State in eastern Syria.The US-led coalition announced today that the Syrian Arab Coalition (SAC) has begun a new offensive against the Islamic State in the Kahbur River valley. The offensive, named “Operation Jazeera Storm,” aims to dislodge the so-called caliphate from its strongholds north of the city of Deir Ezzor.The new effort means that there are now two different coalitions trying to uproot the self-declared caliphate in eastern Syria. Bashar al Assad’s regime, backed by Iran and Russia, has made progress in Deir Ezzor in recent weeks....

The US-led anti-ISIS Coalition stated that a Syrian regime jet was shot down following an attack on SDF forces south of Tabqa. The US-led anti-ISIS coalition Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF–OIR) has released a statement regarding the downing of a Syrian jet near Tabqa Sunday afternoon. According to the statement, titled “Coalition defends partner forces from Syrian fighter jet attack”, at approximately 4:30 pm June 18 pro-Syrian regime forces attacked the Syrian Democratic Forces-held town of Ja'Din, south of Tabqa, wounding a number of SDF fighters and driving the SDF from the town. The statement said...

The general commanding coalition forces in Iraq predicts it will take two years of hard fighting to clear the so-called Islamic State from its twin capitals of Mosul and Raqqa, and then to burn out the remnants that will likely flee to the vast empty desert between Syria and Iraq. In a Christmas Day sit-down with The Daily Beast at his headquarters, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend would not put specific timelines on the battle. But he mapped out a grinding campaign that he thinks is going slowly but as well as can be expected, considering how much time ISIS had...