Indirect US talks for ISIS fighters to exit Raqqa

US Secretary of Defense James Mattis told CBS News Sunday night, May 28, that the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group has “accelerated” and shifted to “annihilation tactics.”
This assertion does not square with the indirect talks the United States is secretly conducting with ISIS for its commanders and most of its operational strength to quit Raqqa, its former de facto Syrian capital, and relocate in Al Mayadeen and Abu Kamal in southeastern Syria.
According to DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources, the negotiations are taking place between the US-sponsored Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is dominated by the powerful YPG Syrian Kurdish militia allied with Syrian Arabs. As a result, few ISIS fighters remain in Raqqa. This force is American-trained and armed, and fights under the command of US special forces officers.
The US was motivated in letting these talks go forward by three considerations:
1. A deal would accelerate Raqqa’s fall with a minimum of casualties for the attackers.
2.  Raqqa’s liberation would leave almost the entire stretch of Kurdish-ruled territory in northern Syria purged of jihadist terrorists. American forces and their Kurdish allies could then go for control of the northern section of the Syrian-Iraqi border. US and Jordanian special forces, combined with an American-trained Syrian rebel group, have been conducting a parallel campaign for the southern section of that border.
3.  If Raqqa can be taken without a battle, the United States can dispense with its Kurdish partners.  This would remove a substantial impediment from the path of President Donald Trump’s diplomacy for drawing Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan back from his rapidly-advancing rapprochement with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

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