Since Sunday, Russian and French raids have struck arms depots, barracks and other areas in Raqa city, the jihadists’ stronghold in northern Syria.
“This is where we must hit Daesh, in its lifeblood,” said French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, using the Arabic acronym for the group.
A preliminary death toll from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said 72 hours of strikes “left 33 dead and dozens wounded in IS ranks”.
Russia said its air force had destroyed some 500 fuel trucks in the past few days as they transported oil from Syria to refineries in Iraq, a key part of IS financing.
Russia on Wednesday also submitted a revised draft UN resolution calling for closer international cooperation against IS in Syria, parts of which the jihadist group rules under its self-proclaimed “caliphate” that also straddles Iraq.
Aktham Alwany, a journalist and activist from Raqa, said civilians in the city were “only moving around when necessary” out of fear of strikes by “whichever nationality — Russian, regime, coalition”.
“Unfortunately, it’s no secret that IS’s bases are inside civilian homes. There are some bases that look like they’re for IS, but in reality they’re empty fakes, while civilian homes are teeming with them,” Alwany told AFP.
Raqa was Syria’s first provincial capital lost by the government, seized by rebels in 2013 then overrun by IS in January last year. At least 300,000 people live there now, according to analyst Fabrice Balanche.
– Syria not ‘natural incubator’ –
France began air strikes targeting IS in Syria in September as part of a US-led coalition, while Moscow launched its own air war in Syria, in coordination with President Bashar al-Assad, on September 30.
The US and France have been firm backers of Syria’s uprising, while Russia and Iran remain staunch allies of the president.
On Wednesday, Assad said his country was not a natural breeding ground for IS, blaming the West and other Middle Eastern countries for creating the jihadist organisation.
“I can tell you Daesh doesn’t have the natural incubator, social incubator, within Syria,” he said in a television interview with Italian national broadcaster Rai.
Jihadists who trained in Syria did so with “the support of the Turks and the Saudis and Qatari, and of course the Western policy that supported the terrorists in different ways”, he insisted.
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