ISIL evacuated from Raqqa's Old City

US-backed fighters in Syria 🇸🇾 say they removed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) from Raqqa's Old City, bringing them closer than ever to the armed group's most well-defended positions.

"Our forces today seized full control of the Old City in Raqqa after clashes with Daesh," Talal Sello, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), told AFP news agency 📰 on Friday, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL.

Sello said the SDF was now on the edges of ISIL's "security quarter in the city centre, where most of its main bases are". They were able to enter it after US-led coalition ✈️ air strikes opened up two gaps in the Rafiqah wall, a 2,500-metre barrier surrounding the Old City.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group tracking developments in the country's war via a network of contacts on trh ground, said the SDF was still locked in clashes with ISIL in a small part of the Old City.

UCJ, UNILORIN.