Raqqa campaign

Russia has issued a stern warning to U.S. forces and their allies in Syria, saying it has deployed Russian special forces alongside Syrian government troops in the battle for the oil-rich Deir el-Zour province and that Moscow would retaliate if the Russians come under fire.

Syrian government troops came closer yesterday to encircling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in a pocket of Deir Ezzor city after crossing the adjacent Euphrates River, Moscow and a monitoring group said.

The Islamic State media reported, on Thursday, that 100 civilians were either killed or wounded in air strikes carried out by Russian warplanes, in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor, Iraqi News reports.

On his way back from Kazakhstan on Sept. 10, Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters on board his plane that his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump would be a good opportunity to cover all the issues between them.

Syrian government forces and U.S.-backed militias converged on Islamic State in separate offensives against the militants in the eastern Syrian province of Deir al-Zor on Sunday, reported Reuters. 

The few bullet-marked schools Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) did not flatten or booby trap around its former Syrian stronghold of Raqqa are buzzing for the first time in years with the sound of children learning.

In the village of Hazima, north of Raqqa, teachers gave ad-hoc alphabet lessons to crammed classrooms on a recent summer's day before the start of term. 

None of the sides can claim victory in the Syrian civil war, U.N. peace talks mediator Staffan de Mistura said on Sept. 6, adding that Syria's opposition must accept that they have not won the six-and-a-half year war against President Bashar al-Assad.

With a sudden lunge through jihadist lines, the Syrian military  and its allies on Sept. 4 came to within three kilometres of relieving the Euphrates city of Deir al-Zor, where Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has besieged an army garrison and 93,000 civilians for years. 

Outgoing army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the Iraq-based commander of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has made it clear that Washington will continue to cooperate with the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) inside the Kurdish-Syrian Arab alliance Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in its bid to sweep jihadists from the Middle Euph

Islamic State Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still alive and is likely to be hiding in the Euphrates Valley, said Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend who commands coalition forces against the jihadist group in Iraq and Syria.