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The Battle for Raqqa – It’s Complicated

Though the battle to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Mosul is slowly reaching its denouement, the campaign to take the jihadists’ Syrian stronghold of Raqqa has not experienced similar success. Insufficient combat-ready troops, a shortage of heavy artillery and ominous tensions between Kurds and Turks have come together to delay the capture of the city. Though Washington has sought to address these concerns – most recently by airlifting Arab and Kurdish forces - its policies are further entrenching its troops in a conflict from which they might not be able to extricate themselves.

After one of its train-and-equip programs in Syria collapsed in October 2015, Washington asked the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military arm, the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) to assemble an Arab coalition to continue the initiative under its aegis. The Kurds gathered several groups to create the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) to fight ISIS in Syria. Though SDF spokesmen claim they have between 50,000 and 54,000 troops, the real number is likely slightly lower. American commanders estimate that Arabs comprise 60 percent of these fighters while Kurds constitute 40 percent. They have boasted that since the operation to take Raqqa commenced on November 5, the SDF has captured more than 7,400 square kilometers of territory from ISIS.

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