A U.S.-backed Syrian Arab-Kurdish coalition says it has captured another neighborhood of Raqqa, the extremist group Islamic State's (IS) stronghold and self-declared capital in Syria.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said its fighters “liberated” on June 11 the northwestern neighborhood of Al-Romaniya after two days of fighting that left 12 IS militants dead.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that SDF fighters now control Al-Romaniya and Al-Meshleb in the east. The fighters have also entered the western neighborhood of Al-Sabahiya.
SDF fighters began their offensive on Raqqa on June 6 under the cover of air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition.
The coalition estimates that the city, which the IS group seized from Syrian rebels in 2014 during their lightning advance in Syria and Iraq, is defended by up to 4,000 militants.